The names of the princes of the Ming Dynasty were named according to the genealogy table set by Zhu Yuanzhang. The Chinese names of the elements on the periodic table of elements were just borrowed from the uncommon characters in the names of the princes of the Ming Dynasty, and it was better to use ready-made ones. It is better to recreate it with all your heart, and the genealogy table produced by Zhu Yuanzhang also has another feature, that is, it must have the five elements radicals, which correspond to the element attributes very smoothly. This coincidence is indeed practical.
The "History of the Ming Dynasty" begins with the list of kings: "During Hongwu, Taizu named his descendants and their descendants, fearing duplication, so he inherited them hereditary in the East Palace and the princes, each with twenty crosses and the word "one generation". When a descendant is born, the clan will establish double names according to the order of the generation, based on the first character, and the next character will take the radical of the five elements, with fire, earth, metal, water, and wood as the order, except for King Jingjiang. ?This means that Zhu Yuanzhang felt that there were too many descendants and was afraid of having repeated names, so he set a rule. Each line of vassal kings has an exclusive character, and the other character must be made of metal, wood, water, fire and earth as the radical, and descendants take the name. The name only has the freedom of half a character, and the freedom of this half character is mostly in the hands of the Ministry of Rites. However, even under such circumstances, Zhu Yuanzhang still had too many descendants, and the characters with the five elements radical were not enough. A lot of messy characters have been included. It can be said that the names of Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants can be said to have almost all the characters with five elements in the Chinese characters, and the rare characters are not spared.
In the late Qing Dynasty, scientist Xu Shou brought back many chemistry books from abroad. When translating them, he discovered that the elements of the periodic table are difficult to express in Chinese. These names are also newly coined words abroad, so Many words that fit the attributes of the elements are needed to name it. At this time, he remembered the lineage table of the kings of the Ming Dynasty. The five elements can be understood as the original Chinese chemical concepts. Metal, wood, water, fire, and earth correspond to the attributes of various elements. The most important thing is that there are too many characters with five-line radicals in the King's Lineage Table, which is much more convenient than flipping through a dictionary, so Xu Shou directly selected the characters to use, and the efficiency was indeed improved a lot.
Why did Xu Shou think of the pig king genealogy table of the Ming Dynasty? This is because Xu Shou is not an ordinary person. Although he has no fame, he is indeed a solid scholar. He is quite erudite in reading and covers a wide range of topics. He is just not good at eight-legged essays and failed to pass the exam. With such a huge reserve of Chinese studies knowledge, It allows him to filter out useful knowledge as quickly as possible when needed. It can be seen that reading a lot of miscellaneous books is also beneficial. There are many skills that are not overwhelming, and he may not be able to use them at any time. The Chinese periodic table of elements borrowed the name of a Ming Dynasty prince. Zhu Yuanzhang probably did not expect that his knowledge, in order to prevent his descendants from having the same name, would have such an effect more than five hundred years later.