Why do ancient people's names have words and numbers?
Let me talk about this knowledge here.
This paper mainly talks about the historical origin and evolution of surnames, surnames, names, characters and numbers.
First, the surname
Xu Shen's Shuo Wen Jie Zi, Volume 24, Women's Department: "Surname, born by people, from women, life, life also sounds." Ban Gu's "White Tiger with Tongde Theory" Volume 9 says: "Those who have surnames are born, and people are born because of the weather." "Zuo Zhuan lived in seclusion for eight years", "Emperor Jiande gave birth to a teacher". This shows that the original meaning of "surname" is "fate". Therefore, it is generally believed that the surname was originally a racial title representing blood, lineage and blood clan relationship, which is referred to as the family number for short. As a clan number, it is not the title of an individual or a family, but the title of the whole clan and tribe. According to documents, our ancestors originally used surnames for "other marriages", "Ming descent" and "other races". It came into being in the period of clan commune in primitive society.
How did the surname come from? It is speculated that the origin of surnames is related to the totem worship of ancestors. In primitive times, all tribes and clans had their own totem worship objects, such as ears of wheat, bears and snakes, which used to be the totems of our ancestors, and this totem worship object became the symbol of our tribe. Later, it became the code name of all members of this tribe, that is, "surname". Because the number of ancient clan tribes is limited and countable after all, there are few surnames left in pure ancient times.
According to the records in the Spring and Autumn Annals, the "ancient surnames" compiled by later generations are: Gui (now there is Guishui in Zhuolu, Hebei Province), Zi, Ji, Feng, Ying (Qin surname), Ji, Ren, Ji, Qian, Cao, Qi and Gui. Nearly half of these surnames have the word female next to them. Therefore, people speculate that surnames may be produced in matriarchal clan society. Zhang Taiyan and other scholars sorted out dozens of ancient surnames (about 59, 52 for Zhang Taiyan and 7 for others) from the older documents such as Shuowen, Shanhaijing, Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Jinwen, leaving only more than 80 surnames. It is conceivable that this is only a part of the actual surnames in ancient times, and there must be more than one original surname. Everyone else is missing. But one thing is certain: there were never so many surnames at that time as we say today. We can list several representatives of surnames from ancient times to the present.
(1) After the Northern Song Dynasty, in the feudal society, Hundred Family Names (edited by Qiantang in the Northern Song Dynasty), which was used as a children's literacy book for a long time, received 502 surnames (including 342 single surnames and 60 compound surnames). The beginning says: "Former Sun Zhaoli, Wu Zhou Zheng Wang, Chen Feng Chu Wei, Jiang Shen Han Yang ...") ② There are 1745 ancient surnames in Zheng Qiao's surnames in the Song Dynasty. (3) Wu Shen, editor of the Hanlin Academy in the Ming Dynasty, and others compiled Thousand Surnames of the Ming Empire, with the surname 1968, according to the household registration book collected by the Ministry at that time. (At the beginning, it says, "Zhu Feng is lucky, rich, spiritual, civil and military, Taoist Tang Tao ...") ④ Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty personally examined and approved "Hundreds of Surnames of the Royal Family", (At the beginning, it says, "Confucius is not in the party, Meng Xi is in Qiliang, the mountain is in Zhanyang, Zou Lu Rongchang, Zong Zheng, and you are in the summer ...") ⑤ Zhang Shu, A Qing. ⑥ After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), mainland scholars Yan Fuqing and others have edited and published The Complete Collection of Surnames in China, with a total of 5,730 surnames. Among them, there are 3470 single surnames, 2085 double surnames, three-character surnames 163, and four-character five-character surnames 12. Taiwan Province Province has also published 6,363 surnames of "China Surnames", but there are cases of repeated income in variant forms. ⑦ According to the sampling survey conducted by the Chinese Characters Department of China Language and Character Reform Commission in 1984 and the estimation of relevant experts, there are more than 3,000 surnames still in use today. (Meteorological Press 200 1 1 published "Contemporary Hundred Surnames" edited by Wang Daliang. According to the national census data of 1982, at present, there are about 400 commonly used surnames in China. According to the population statistics at that time, the top surnames of 100 were: Zhao Huang, Xu Zhu Heguo. Su Lu Jiang Yan, Yu Pandu Dai Xiajiang, Fan Liao Zhou Xiong Jin Lu, Hao Kongbai Cui Kang Wang Qiu Qin Jiangshi, Gu Houlang Meng Longwan Lei Qiantang, Yin Liyi Chang Wuqiao He Laigongwen. These 100 surnames account for more than 87% of the total population of China. Among them, the population of the three cities, namely, Shanghai, Shanghai and Shanghai, exceeds 300 million. Li 87 million, Wang 80 million, Zhang 8 million, Liu 60 million and Chen 50 million. The situation of the most popular surnames in cities across the country is also different. For example, the surnames of the former 10 people in Shanghai are: Chen Zhu Liu Shen. This figure is far from the so-called pure "surname" we mentioned earlier. What about other words called surnames? Those words are the main components of modern surnames. Let's introduce them.
Second, "giving"
Due to the increase in population, the original tribe was divided into several new tribes. In order to distinguish each other and show their specificity, these tribes set up a code name for their sub-tribes, which is "division" Of course, some small tribes still use the surnames of the old tribes instead of doing so. Some tribes have their own "surnames" while using their old surnames. These small tribes were later divided into more small tribes, and they determined their own surnames, so that surnames became more and more, even far exceeding the original surnames.
In terms of time, this is already a matter of patriarchal society, and surnames bear the brand of this era. So "teacher" can be said to be a branch of surname. "Tonggan Foreign Collection" said: "Surnames are unified by the place where their ancestors went to school, and surnames are different from future generations." It can explain the relationship between the two. The "surname" is constant, and the "surname" is variable. Gu also said that "the surname changes from generation to generation, and the surname remains unchanged for thousands of years." Before the Qin and Han Dynasties, surnames and surnames were used on different occasions, and there were strict rules on who had surnames and who used them. After the Han dynasty, surnames were not divided and unified, and they were collectively called surnames. The most obvious sign is historical records. According to the existing surname, we can infer its source or preliminarily determine the reason for being a surname, which is roughly as follows:
(1) As mentioned earlier, there are surnames of female characters, such as Ying, Ji, Jiang, Gui and Ying. Reflect the worship of women in matriarchal clan society. Some are directly titles of matriarchs.
(2) Take animals and plants or other natural objects as surnames. Such as horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, snakes, dragons, willows, plums, peaches, flowers, leaves, valleys, wheat, mulberry, hemp, millet, mountains, water, forests, wood, wind, clouds, rivers, rivers, gold, stones, steel, iron and jade, among which there are many.
(3) Take the country, fief or official position or title as the surname. Such as Qi, Chu, Yan, Han, Zhao, Wei, Qin, Lu, Cai, Zheng, Chen, Song and Ruan; Stuart, Sima,,, Zai, Shangguan, Taishi, Shaozheng, Wang, Hou, Gongsun, Bozi, etc. Because there were various titles of ancient officials with titles, there were many such surnames.
(4) Take the place of birth, residence or occupation as the surname, such as Yao (Yu Shun was born in Yao ruins), Dongfang (Fuxi residence), Ximen, Dongmen (the land was sealed by the descendants of Luzhuang Gongzi), Dongguo, Nanbaili, Ouyang (the King of Yue Gou Jian was sealed in the Ouyang Pavilion in Wucheng), pottery, witchcraft, divination and medicine.
(5) Take the ancestral number and posthumous title as the surname. Such as Tang, Yu, Xia, Shang, Zhou, Yin, Wen, Wu, Zhao, Mu, Kang, Zhuang, Xuan, Ping and Cheng.
(6) Others (there are several varieties and mutations of surnames):
First, the emperor gave the surname. Such as Liu Bangci, Xiang Bo, surnamed Liu. Li Yuci gave Tinggui (Mo Guan) a surname of Li.
B, change the surname to avoid disaster. For example, after Wu Zixu was killed in Wu, his descendants fled to Qi and changed their surname to Wang Sun; After Chen's civil strife, his son, Chen Wan, fled to Qi to become a doctor and changed his surname to Tian.
C, in order to avoid the emperor or saint taboo and change the surname. For example, Xun changed into a grandson, Zhuang changed his face, and autumn changed into autumn.
D, change the surname because the original surname is complicated and there are many words. For example, Sima Jian's surname is Si, Ma and Feng, and his surname is Ou.
E. Ethnic minorities take the initiative to adopt the surname of China. For example, Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty stipulated that Xianbei people changed their surnames to Han people such as Lu, Mu, He and Yu, and the royal family took the lead in changing Tuoba's surname to Yuan's.
F In addition, Tuoba, Shan Yu, Yuwen, Sun Chang, Huyan, Weichi, Lu Ye, Wan Yan and Aisingiorro are all transliteration of minority surnames in Chinese. Some minority surnames are simplified when translated into Chinese, such as Aisingiorro, whose surname was changed to Luo Hejin. As can be seen from the above, the same surname is not necessarily a family.
Today, surnames in "your surname", "respected surname" and "in the order of strokes of surnames" in public social occasions actually include ancient surnames and surname.
In addition, there are several points worth noting about ancient surnames:
(1) Before the Warring States Period, nobles all had surnames. Noble men say their surnames, and women say their surnames. Because "surnames are different from marriage", "surnames are different from aristocrats" and "aristocrats have surnames, and lowly ones have no surnames" (A Brief Introduction to Tongzhi Imperial Clans), Gu said in Records of the Day: "It is said that who was called by a man between 255 years? Nothing. "
So what do men call it? 1, your first name is last name; 2. The base number is summarized by occupation. Such as Qiu Yi, Kenting, Jiangshi, Jardine Matheson and Youmeng, these professional names later became surnames. At that time, it was a general term.
(2) If the surnames are different, the marriage can be passed; People with different surnames can't get married. "courtesy does not marry the same surname", "it is not uncommon for parents to have the same surname" (Zuo zhuan), "if the same surname does not marry, evil does not breed". Some people think that it contains pure eugenics.
During the Spring and Autumn Period, Duke Zhao of Lu married Wu. Both of them are surnamed Ji, but his wife changed her surname to Meng and called Wu Mengzi.
(3) Because "surname" plays the role of "not marrying", aristocratic children do not call their surnames by their first names, so it is particularly important for women to call their surnames by their first names. In order to distinguish women with the same surname who are about to get married or get married, and form a special female address, prefixes and suffixes are added before and after the surname.
A. Prefix ranking: Meng, Bo, Zhong, Shu and Ji. Such as Jiang Meng, Ji Bo, Shu Kui,
B prefixed with husband's fief and posthumous title, such as Jinji, Wujiang and Wenying.
C, Jia, female, female, Ji, Yi and other suffixes, such as Zhang, Shang, Wu Ji, Zhao Yi, etc.
It's not over yet!