When Zhu Yuanzhang was a farmer, his name and the names of his family were all a series of numbers, but when he had a certain status and social status, he got his official name. When he became emperor, his family naturally became famous and harmonious.
There are two famous farmers in China history, one is Liu Bang and the other is Zhu Yuanzhang. They all had no names before they became emperors. Liu Bang's previous name was Liu Ji, not Liu Mingji. Ji was ranked first, and it was the first, second and third place. Liu Bang also has two brothers, Liu Bo and Liu Zhong. When he arrives, he will be called Liu Ji. If we must use more vernacular expressions, their three brothers will be called Mr. Liu, Mr. Liu's second child, Liu Laosan or Mr. Liu. Zhu Yuanzhang used to be called Zhu Chongba. Some people say that he was born on the eighth day of August, while others say that he was born on the sixteenth day, so he is called Chongba.
Both Liu Ji and Zhu Chongba are nicknames, not official names. There were many illiterates in ancient times, so parents wouldn't be too particular about naming their children. When children grow up, they often ask a literate gentleman to give them a formal name. For example, when you enter the school, the teacher will give you a name, called the scientific name.
China in the Yuan Dynasty was ruled by foreigners. As the rulers, the Mongols stipulated the social classes of various races. The first class was naturally Mongolians, the second class was all ethnic groups in the western regions, the third class was Han people in the north, and the last class was Han people in the south. The rulers not only discriminated against the Han people, but also discriminated against the Han culture, abolished the system of selecting scholars in the imperial examination, ruined the way for Chinese scholars to enter the world, and the whole society lost the enthusiasm for reading and literacy. In this cultural atmosphere, it is not easy to find a literate teacher to name children. More importantly, the southern Han people, especially the people living at the bottom, hardly need to have a formal name.
In the long feudal era, how uneducated parents named their children, various regions gradually formed some customary practices.
For example, in Lu Xun's "The Storm", the custom of eastern Zhejiang was described, and the child was named after his birth weight, hence the names of nine-catty old woman, seven-catty old woman and six-catty old woman.
For example, in Jiangxi, it is said that when a child is born, when the father wants to open the door and look out, he takes it as the child's nickname.
For example, in the Central Plains area, the morning after a child is born, the father of the child will go out and meet the first person, whether men, women or children, who will kneel and kowtow and ask him to help him name his child. It is extremely unlikely that you can read and write outside in the early morning, and most of the other party will not have any culture. However, due to customs, you have to make up a story, so there will be a lot of names among the people, such as: Dog Leftover, Dog Baby, Pig Baby, Donkey, Tie, Iron Egg, Stone Lock, Erleng, Erhei, two dog and Sanpang. If you get up early and meet a dung collector, the child's name may be a dung basket and a hoe.
At the end of Yuan Dynasty, Jiangsu and Anhui were named after the birth date of the child, hence Zhu Yuanzhang's nickname Zhu Chongba. Like Zhang Shicheng, who was also a peasant rebel, his original nickname was Zhang Jiusi. At first glance, I knew that this man was born on the fourth day of September, and Zhang Shicheng was also named after he became a general.
after Zhu Yuanzhang became emperor, the history books will write about his family, so it is of course necessary to give them a formal name. Just like when Liu Bang became emperor, he made his father the emperor's father. Just like Cao Cao didn't become an emperor, but after his son became an emperor, the first thing he did was to give Cao Cao an emperor's title and make him Wei Wudi. It is easy for them to be posthumously awarded as emperor, not to mention giving his family a magnificent name?
by the way, after Zhu Yuanzhang became emperor, he made a rule for naming his descendants, that is, he must use the five elements as radicals and arrange them in the order of the five elements. If his sons Zhu Biao and Zhu Di are on the side of wood, then Sun Tzu is on the side of fire. After generations of reproduction, the characters with five elements in the popular Chinese characters were not enough, so they were created. Up to now, when we read the History of Ming Dynasty, many Zhu Moumou with five elements didn't know them. I can't find it when I open the Kangxi Dictionary. By the late Ming Dynasty, there were so many people named Zhu Royal that they couldn't be born. Many princes and grandchildren had no names, so they returned to the state where they had no names before Zhu Yuanzhang. I don't know if it's also called Grade One, Grade Two, Grade Seven and Grade Eight.