China people's typesetting theory of seniority has a long history. Why are fewer and fewer people named after their qualifications now?

In the traditional clan culture, names are endowed with unique meanings. In order to better inherit and distinguish the lineages of the same clan, the ancient people named their names with emphasis not only on meaning but also on connotation. They have different generations and different orders, so they should avoid using their ancestors' names, so word generation came into being.

According to reports, the names of ancient people in China often have characters, numbers and so on. In addition to their names, it later evolved into a family-style naming method based on "ten generations of surnames+first names". Generation, as an agreement in genealogy, cannot be easily changed. In addition to stipulating the vertical blood relationship of the family, it also implies fame and ideals. For example, in A Dream of Red Mansions, Jia's rank is determined by the radical of surname, and most families add a third word between surname and first name, such as Kong Jixiang, Ling Academic School and Zhang Academic School. According to this tradition, many children have not yet been born, and at least two words in their names have been stipulated by the family elders.

However, with the emergence of a large number of new names with political significance in the 1950s and 1960s, traditional festivals have been simplified, naming has become more independent, and the pressure of social renaming has been alleviated. According to the data, there are 1 6 0 1 surnames in China, and if parents adopt dual surnames, it will increase to1280,000. On the other hand, the new naming method makes many modern families face the danger of losing their foundation. A survey of thousands of people in urban areas shows that 5 0% of young people around the age of 2 0 don't know the tradition of naming every other generation; 80% people in this age group don't know their seniority.

Some sociologists worry that the original surname can be distinguished by seniority. Once they are not according to seniority, this free change will bring inconvenience to the identification of relatives, and may even lead to inbreeding.

With the development of economy, people's material and cultural life is increasingly enriched, and the eastern and western cultures are increasingly infiltrated, the diversification of names has become an irreversible trend of the times.