How to give a child a good-sounding name that doesn’t sound too tacky is a headache for many parents. For the past few hundred years, Chinese people have been named according to their seniority. This method of naming was also very popular in rural areas. To put it simply, they are people in the same family, and the names of their peers differ only by one word.
1. Farmers’ ideas are no longer so traditional
China used to be a relatively feudal country. People at that time had to follow traditions in almost everything, including naming their children. But with the development of the times, people have abandoned these backward ideas. So now, rural people no longer attach so much importance to "seniority" when choosing names. 2. Naming according to seniority is a bit rigid. Just imagine, a large family may have twenty or thirty children with the same surname. For example, the surname Li has the character Yuan. Then there are children of the same generation with the same name "Li Mouyuan", but only one character in the middle is different, and they look very dull. It would be fine if it were a relatively common generational character, but if the seniority character determined by the ancestors was strange, it might make things difficult for future generations.
3. The overall cultural level of farmers has improved
In our previous generations, very few people could receive a good education. In backward rural areas, few people can read. The parents, who lacked cultural knowledge, could not think of a better name, so they had to name them according to their seniority. However, after the popularization of compulsory education, more and more literate rural people have become more thoughtful in naming their children.
4. Family culture is no longer so important
In the past, people attached great importance to their family culture, so their children had to be named according to the seniority of the family. But now many large families in rural areas are slowly starting to disperse. People in the family have settled in big cities one after another. After leaving the family, naming children does not necessarily have to follow the past traditions.