In fact, the slaves and maids in ancient times were not nameless as we think. In fact, they also had names, but they didn’t sound good. After all, if they don’t have names, how will their families call them? However, because most of the people who work as slaves and maids are from poor family backgrounds, and most of their parents are illiterate, they usually use more casual names when naming their children, such as: A Niu, Ah Hua and the like.
On the contrary, those families who can afford to hire slaves and maids mostly have a certain economic foundation, so they usually have received education. Even some nouveau riche care a lot about what others think of them after they become rich. Because the social status of ancient Chinese merchants was not high, they would pay more attention to the cultural quality of the people in their houses in order to get closer to the educated people.
Names like A Niu and A Hua are very vulgar in the eyes of wealthy people, and cannot be considered elegant. So they sometimes ask their slaves and maids to change their names to show their cultural heritage. For these slaves and maids, it is not a bad thing to be asked to change their names by their masters. Most of them are honored to be given names by their masters.
Because only slaves and maids who are reused by their masters and can often show their faces in front of their masters and guests may be asked to change their names. After all, they represent the image of their masters. Like those servants who work in the kitchen all year round or are responsible for laundry. Compared with names like A Niu and A Hua, names like Ping An and Chun Lan are obviously much nicer. Therefore, in the eyes of ancient slaves and maids, it was a great honor and favor to be given a name by the master. ?