"There are five, faith, righteousness, like, virtual, class. Take the name and life as the letter, the virtue and life as the righteousness, the class life as the image, the thing as the fake, and the father as the class. Not by the state, not by officials, not by mountains and rivers, not by hidden diseases, not by animals, not by coins. "
This passage contains five basic principles and six taboos in the naming of pre-Qin people. The six taboos were actually destroyed at that time, but the five basic principles can help us understand the strangeness of pre-Qin names.
Letters refer to naming a child after some of its characteristics when he is born, including both the physiological characteristics of the child and the special circumstances before and after birth. For example, the "black ass" mentioned in the title is named after the physiological characteristics, while "birth" is named after the specific situation when he was born (dystocia);
Righteousness means naming with beautiful words and giving hope in the name. This is the unity of ancient and modern times, such as the famous unlucky Bian He in the Spring and Autumn Period;
Elephant refers to the naming of similar things, specifically, things that borrow similar characteristics with children. The most famous example is Confucius. In Historical Records, Confucius was said to be "born on the head, hence the name Qiu Yun". It says here that Confucius was born with a sunken head, so he was named Qiu. It should be noted that the word autumn is now interpreted as a hill with raised terrain, which can be found in Shuo Wen Jie Zi.
False refers to borrowing the name of something to name it. For example, we can see that people in the pre-Qin period especially liked to use "mortar" to name them, such as Ji Yijiu of Zhou Pingwang and Gongsun Chujiu, a famous righteous man. Borrowing mortar to name them here is actually a symbol that rice mortar is solid but not rotten, and it can also be linked with agricultural harvest;
Class refers to naming a son with words related to his father. For example, the reason why I named my son Tong as mentioned above is because his son is the same as himself in Cygnus. I can also cite a novel character to illustrate this naming principle, that is, Yang Guo, whose father has it, so he was named Guo.
After reading these, you should have a certain understanding of the naming methods in the pre-Qin era. In fact, it's not that people name strange things, but that our naming methods and views on things have changed now. Nowadays, we seldom use physical characteristics to name things, and we think it is bound to be indecent or bring ridicule to children. The ancients didn't mind, and now we don't think "mortar" is a beautiful symbol, but the ancients loved those things that were turtles. To put it bluntly, we think the names of the ancients in the pre-Qin period.