Interesting facts about the emperor's name Interpret the mystery of the naming of emperors in ancient dynasties
If we carefully analyze the names of the ancients, it is not difficult to find that most of the emperors of the Han, Jin, Tang, and Song dynasties used monosyllabic names, among which the two Han periods were the most serious, with as many as 23 emperors and most of the ** and commoners using monosyllabic names. So, what is the reason why monosyllabic names have become popular for such a long period of time?
In fact, some scholars have done special research on this, such as Huang Qingmin's "Experimental Research on the Emergence of Single Names of Han and Jin Characters", Wei Bin's "Single Names and Double Names: The Changes and Significance of Names in the Han and Jin Dynasties and Northern and Southern Dynasties". Through these documents, it is not difficult for us to unravel the mysteries.
One theory is that the prevalence of words on the Internet is based on the idea of "Ram Spring and Autumn"."The two names are not named"Theory. The basis for this argument is that Confucius often deliberately changed the name of two characters to the name of one character when writing the Spring and Autumn Period, such as jiang"Zhongsun He Ji"Changed to"Zhongsun Ji", so the scholar of the Warring States Period, Ram Gaocai, said Confucius"No two"。
With Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty"Confucianism"，"Two were rude"The concept began to take root in the hearts of the people, and more and more people began to boycott the two names, and the same name and surname gradually became popular. When Wang Mang ascended the throne, he even suggested to Emperor Ping of Han that his name be changed from Liu Minzi to Liu Commander.
Under the vigorous promotion of Wang Mang, the Han Dynasty set off a wave of name changes, which even had a profound impact on the Xiongnu. For example, in the Book of Han - The Biography of Wang Mang, it is written:"(Xiongnu Shan Yu) heard that the Han people ridiculed the two names, so they changed their name to Nan Ya Yuan from the holy system. "Xiongnu Shan Yu also changed his name to Shan Zi.
However, this statement seems to be difficult to hold, because before Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, single names were popular on a large scale, such as in the Western Han Dynasty founding heroes Xiao He, Zhang Liang, Cao Shen, Fan Xu, Han Xin, Ying Bu, Chen Ping, Zhou Bo and others, it is rare to see double names.
Why did nicknames suddenly become so popular after the Qin and Han dynasties? Emperor Zhao of the Han Dynasty, whose real name was Liu Fuling, was the cause of his accession to the throne"It's hard to avoid two names"and changed the name"Ferdin"。Huang Qingmin also believes in "Research on the Single Name Phenomenon of Han and Jin Figures" that the reason why there are so many single names since the Qin and Han dynasties is mainly because of the development of the evasion system since the Qin and Han dynasties.
We know that avoidance became popular in the pre-Qin period, so why did there be so many double-character names in the Zhou Dynasty and very few after the Qin and Han dynasties? The reason is that the avoidance in the pre-Qin period was not strict. There is a pre-Qin classic "The Book of Rites - Qu Li"."Identifying names does not avoid suspicion, and duplicate names do not harm"It means that avoiding homophones and words with similar pronunciations can be ignored, as long as two words are not used at the same time, and when encountering duplicate names, it is not considered a violation of etiquette.
Confucius's mother called"Jung Jae"。Confucius can only be used in everyday life"levy"or"In", as long as it is not used at the same time"levy"with"In", it is not considered a violation of etiquette. , as long as it is not used at the same time"levy"with"In", it is not considered a violation of etiquette. But in the Qin and Han dynasties, in order to maintain the centralized imperial power, the taboo system began to become more and more strict. Not only are synonyms and synonyms not allowed, but the names of the two personalities encountered, even the names of royalty and their relatives, must be avoided. For example, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was named Liu Che, but the public could only will"Thoroughly"Instead"Thoroughly"。Another example is Wang Zhengjun, whose father's name is Wang Bian"Bian Zhong"It must be changed to"Provincial Middle"。Another example is Shouzhang County, formerly known as Shouliang County, which was renamed to avoid the name of Emperor Wu's uncle.
However, with the increasingly strict taboo system since the Qin and Han dynasties, this will inevitably cause serious social problems, that is, more and more words to avoid and change, easy to make ** names, place names, official names, book titles, year names of confusion, and even the names of ancient books have to be changed, such as "Spring and Autumn" to "Yangqiu", "Zhuangzi" to change to "Yanzi".
Therefore, in order to avoid the drawbacks of taboo and reduce the number of taboo characters, emperors after the Han Dynasty mainly adopted two conventional naming methods:
1. A large number of single names. After all, a single name is not as taboo as a double name, from the perspective of the imperial lineage, the vast majority of the twenty-four emperors of the two Han Dynasty are single words, the five emperors of Cao Wei, the two emperors of Shu Han, and the four emperors of Eastern Wu are all single words, and from Sima Yan to Sima Dewen in the two Jin Dynasty, only two of the fifteen emperors are double words. According to statistics, in the six hundred years from the Western Han Dynasty to the Eastern Jin Dynasty, there were forty-nine emperors, and only five emperors had double character names (two of the three emperors of the Western Han Dynasty switched to single characters after ascending the throne), and single-character emperors accounted for ninety percent of the total number of emperors. The same was true of the Tang and Song dynasties, with the exception of Li Shimin, Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, and Zhao Kuangyin, Taizong of the Song Dynasty, the vast majority of emperors used names with the same name and surname.
2. A large number of rare words. Since these words are not commonly used, they naturally play a role in natural avoidance. For example, the Western Han Dynasty Emperor Liu Zheng, the Han Jing Emperor Liu Qi, the Han Jing Emperor Liu Zhen, the Eastern Han Dynasty Emperor Liu Zhao, the Han Jing Emperor Liu Zhen, Cao Wei's Cao Rong, Cao Chao, etc., this is very obvious, especially in the Ming Dynasty, the names of Zhu Di's descendants are said to be the periodic table.
As mentioned above, the one-character name is for the convenience of avoidance, the emperor is so, and the same is true for ordinary people, so in order to make it easier for people to avoid it, and for the younger generations in the family to avoid it, not only the emperor began to use one-character names in large quantities, but ordinary people also began to popularize children to take one-character names.
After the Tang Dynasty, although the emperor continued to use single names, vernacular names with two characters began to become popular again for two main reasons:
First of all, this is the habit of naming people in the last years of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. At that time, it was customary to add an imaginary character to a single name, such as adding a word after the name"of"word, add one before the single name"tract"Words and"Monk"words, so these imaginary words are unavoidable. Chen Yuan pointed out"Single name is added before it'of'word"。Chen Yuan pointed out"King Xizhi of Jin has five sons: Xuanzhi, Ningzhi, Huizhi, Caozhi, and Qianzhi. The son of Hui is true, and the heir of the scenery of dedication. Father, son, grandson and grandson"Clan"In the name, I don't think so, Song Wanghong's son Shengda, Sun Shengliang, Shengyan, great-grandson Shengqing, Shengjiang, Shengzi, Sun Shengyou, uncles and nephews are all to"Win"For the sake of the name, not resentment. "And this may have affected the formation of the generation characters after the Tang Dynasty, and the generation characters of the same name are not there"word"The smooth passage of the mouth.
Secondly, after the Yongjia Rebellion, ethnic minorities entered the Central Plains and had a great impact on Han culture, and most of these ethnic minorities retained their surnames and did not use the Han surnames, but still used their own names in their own characters. As Shen Defu said, such as Tuoba Liwei, Tuoba Mohan, Erzhu Yujian, Nuqu Nancheng, Qifu Yizhou, Zhou Changzhu, etc"(One surname) in the Wei and Jin dynasties, gradually but not gradually, five Hu stole according to the Central Plains, Hu Ming then used three or four"。This also had a profound impact on the Han people, who gradually began to restore two-character names, such as Liu Yilong, Emperor Wen of the Southern Song Dynasty, and Xiao Daocheng, Emperor Gao of the Southern Qi Dynasty.
To sum up, the reason why the emperors of the Han, Jin, Tang, Song and other dynasties had a large number of the same name and surname was mainly due to people's convenience and family taboos, and due to the great integration of nationalities after the Wuhu chaos and the rise of the Tang Dynasty, although the Tang and Song emperors still dominated the same name and surname, the popular double characters began to become popular again.