In ancient times, the emperor had supreme status, including his name, birthday, animal sign, nickname and so on. His subjects were not allowed to speak with the same accent. Therefore, people who lived in ancient times should change their surnames if they had a name at birth and changed dynasties.
"Biography of the Ram in the Year of Min" said: "The Spring and Autumn Period is taboo for venerable people, taboo for relatives, and taboo for saints." This is the general principle of ancient taboos. The first kind of taboo objects are emperors, who taboo the names of contemporary emperors and emperors of past dynasties, which were "national taboos" or "public taboos" at that time.
For example, during the Liu Xiu period, the scholar was changed to Cai Mao; Ganlong once wrote a letter to the door, saying that Five Blessingg was not allowed in the couplet, in order to avoid the name of the emperor shunzhi Fu Lin. Sometimes they even avoid using the queen's name, such as Lv Hou's name, and courtiers have to change their names to pheasants when they meet pheasants.
Extended data:
Ancient people used the following methods to avoid naming:
1, synonym avoidance method, that is, synonyms are used to avoid the name of the emperor.
For example, in the Qin dynasty, taboos were strictly controlled, and no one was allowed to offend the name of Qin Shihuang. Qin Shihuang's name is correct, so many people's names are not correct. Even if the word "Zheng" is used, it should be changed to a word with a similar meaning to the word "Zheng", and all names related to "Zheng" should be replaced. The synonym of "Zheng" is "Duan", and the first month was changed to "Duan Yue".
2, homophone avoidance method. In ancient times, some dynasties used homophones to avoid the names of emperors.
For example, the name of Emperor Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty was called, and people avoided these two words when naming them, and some families were just descendants of the word "Xuan". No way, this generation has disappeared in the genealogy and can only be replaced by homophones. The homophonic here is similar to homophonic, but it is not homophonic with Zi Xuan. The Qing people used Yuan instead and jade instead of leaves, cleverly avoiding the name of the emperor.