There were sixteen emperors in the Ming Dynasty. Their names were Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Yunwen, Zhu Di, Zhu Gaochi, Zhu Zhanji, Zhu Qizhen, Zhu Qiyu, Zhu Jianshen, Zhu Youtang, Zhu Houzhao, and Zhu Houcong. , Zhu Zaihe, Zhu Yijun, Zhu Changluo, Zhu Youxiao, Zhu Youjian. When Zhu Yuanzhang was in power, he gave his sons a five-character quatrain to name their descendants, so that they could be named according to their seniority as the first character of their names. The second character needs to be in the order of the five elements, that is, wood, fire, earth, metal, and water, and should be used as the radical of the second character of the name in turn, and the five generations cycle.
Except for a few sons who died young, Zhu Yuanzhang set a character generation for each son, also called a character school. For example, the family of Zhu Di, King of Yan, are: Gao Zhan Qi Jianyou, Hou Zaiyi Changyou, Ci Heyi Bozhong, Jian Jingdi Xianyou?, Zhu Gaochi, Zhu Zhanji, Zhu Qizhen, Zhu Qiyu, Zhu Jianshen, Zhu Youtang, Zhu Houzhao, Zhu Houcong , Zhu Zaihe, Zhu Yijun, Zhu Changluo, Zhu Youxiao and Zhu Youjian all conform to the generation set by Zhu Yuanzhang. Since Zhu Di's generation used wood as the radical, the second character of Zhu Gaochi's name was "chi" with "fire" as the radical.
Zhu Yuanzhang’s intention in doing this is probably to take the five elements of life, wood produces fire, fire produces earth, earth produces gold, metal produces water, water produces wood, which is a beautiful meaning that lasts for eternity. It is also the descendant of Zhu Yuanzhang. blessings and prayers. In addition, Zhu Yuanzhang did this to a large extent to avoid the trouble of not being able to read and write normally in order to avoid taboos, but it caused a big trouble for his descendants.
Zhu Yuanzhang’s descendants, in order to avoid duplication of names among family members, even created some characters, especially next to the word "金", which is probably the most difficult to find, but the descendants More and more. There are also benefits to creating characters. When the periodic table of chemical elements was translated into Chinese, it helped chemists and translators. Many of the characters next to the letters of gold were used as characters for metal elements.