The name is extremely familiar to each of us. When everyone is born, their parents and elders will give the child a name that may be heroic or auspicious. Even when some people are still conceived in the mother's womb, their parents and elders can't wait to consult the dictionary, or pay a lot of money to hire a naming "" master" or expert to give the child a good name in advance. Most people's The name may have obvious gender characteristics, such as ""gang", ""qiang", etc. are commonly used by men, and ""hua", ""ling", ""hong", etc. are commonly used by women; or have obvious gender characteristics. For example, for men born around 1949 and 1950, names such as "Jianguo" and "Yuan Korea" are more common; people born in the 1960s and 1970s often use names such as "Weidong" and " Names such as "Satellite". Since the reform and opening up, people's naming principles have become broader and even "random". Various "weird" names such as Queen Duanmu, King of Glory, and Durex have also been frequently seen in the media. Report. Unlike modern people who still mainly pursue auspicious and wishful meanings, but the naming principles have become very casual and have gradually become more relaxed, the naming etiquette of the royal family in the Qing Dynasty has gone from loose to strict. In the course of its development, a relatively strict, even rigid and cumbersome naming etiquette was finally formed during the Kangxi period. Those who violated it would be severely punished. Perhaps readers who have watched many films about the Qing Dynasty will say so easily. The names of the 12 emperors of the Qing Dynasty, Fulin, Xuanye, Yinzhen, Hongli... Puyi, are very ordinary and ordinary. What etiquette should be followed? The fact is that since Emperor Kangxi, the Qing royal family has formulated and implemented strict rules. Naming etiquette. Names such as Yinzhen, Hongli...Puyi are the "" results" of the specific implementation of this etiquette. 1. Naming customs of the Manchus before entering the customs. Before entering the Central Plains of Dingding, the Manchus named their newborns. The birth date is usually after the child is one month old. The naming method is also relatively simple and simple. There are three common naming methods: naming someone based on the age of an elder in the family at the time of birth. For example, when someone is born, he or she is named. /Her grandfather, grandmother and other elders happen to be seventy years old. He/she may be named "Nadanzhu" (meaning seventy in Manchu). Names are given in order of birth, with the eldest son being more likely to be named. With a name like ""Aji"/""Aji (Jing)ga", the second son was named ""Zhuer" (there are also documents recorded as ""Jiaxin"/""Jiaxinga"), and the third son was named "" Yilan", the fourth son was named "" Duiyin", the fifth son was named "" Suncha", and the youngest son was named "" Fu'angku". Named after animals, such as Nurhaci, Taizu of the Qing Dynasty, which means wild boar Pi (In recent years, some scholars have raised objections to this transliteration, believing that the name "Nurhaci" is Uighur. "Nur" means "bright" in Uighur; "Hachi" means "Haqi". ", means ""saint" in Uighur, and also means ""prince" and ""shizi"" in Chinese. ""Nurhaci"'s full meaning should be ""bright saint", a very noble name)" His younger brother Shuerhachi means "little wild boar skin"; Yarhaqi means leopard skin. Nurhachi's son Dorgon's name means "badger". Stills of Nurhachi After the Qing Dynasty entered the country, and in the early Kangxi period, the royal family and even the Manchu people focused more on the good luck and safety of their children when naming them, so the names often expressed the meaning of peace and stability, such as Lehe, Nuoqin, etc. 2. Royal naming under the influence of Sinicization. After the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, due to the influence of Han name culture, especially the lineage of Han emperors, during the Kangxi period, the royal naming method underwent fundamental changes compared with the past, forming a set of comparisons. Strict and cumbersome naming etiquette. This etiquette mainly includes the following three aspects: Stills of Emperor Yongzheng in "Yongzheng Dynasty" (1) Fixed characters. Influenced by the naming etiquette and customs of the Han people, Emperor Kangxi first adopted the long-standing tradition of the Han people to use a certain character to unify a certain generation when naming his descendants, and stipulated that two characters should be used as names. For his sons, the first character is "Yun", and the second character is "礻" for the side house, such as his sons Yunfeng, Yunzhen (later Emperor Yongzheng), Yunhu, Yunxiang, and Yunqi etc.; for the grandchildren, the first character is " " Hong ", and the second character is all with " " 日" as the radical, such as Honghui, Hongzhou, Hongli (the traditional Chinese character is " "李", later Emperor Qianlong) etc.; among the 101 grandsons of Emperor Kangxi, only three grandsons, Fuyi, Fuhui and Fupei, born to Emperor Yongzheng and Concubine Nian, did not follow this ritual system. The first names of their great-grandchildren were all "Yong". The second character all uses ""yu" as the radical, such as Yonglian, Yongcong, Yongyan (later Emperor Jiaqing, changed his name to ""Yongyan"), etc. This naming ritual was followed by subsequent emperors and became a custom . "Returning to the Princess" Qianlong stills During the reign of Emperor Qianlong, the sixth son of the emperor Yong Rong carefully drew the "Picture of the New Year" and presented it to the emperor's grandmother, Qianlong's biological mother, the Empress Dowager Xiaosheng. Qianlong inscribed a poem on the painting. Among them, ""The Picture of Yong Mian Yi Zai Feng Ci" greatly pleased the Queen Mother. When Emperor Qianlong saw that the Queen Mother particularly liked this poem, he also discovered that the character "" Yong" happened to be the generation name of the prince of this dynasty, so he decided to use "" Yong, The four characters "Mian, Yi and Zai" are used as the seniority characters for the descendants of the royal family.
Emperor Daoguang settled on four generational characters: "Pu", "Yu", "Heng" and "Qi". Emperor Xianfeng also designated ""Tao", ""Kai", ""Zeng" and "" The four characters "Qi" and the radical of the following character are used for naming by future generations. Prince Gong Yi?, Emperor Guangxu Zaitan, and the last emperor Puyi all followed this naming etiquette. Names chosen by Puyi and Wanrong (2) While defining the names, Emperor Kangxi also imitated the traditional etiquette of the Han people and implemented the "taboo" system. Those with the same name in the royal family had to change their names in order to avoid naming. The names of those with seniority and seniority are taboo. The first character and the second radical of the imperial naming must be the same as those of the emperor's direct descendants. The radicals of characters must be avoided and cannot be used casually, except those given by the emperor. In the eleventh year of Qianlong's reign (1746), Emperor Qianlong accidentally saw a person in the clan named Yong Cong, who had the same name as his seventh son. , so he made a special edict: " "The outer Yongcong will be renamed Yongchang. ... Later, when the name is given by outsiders, the words drawn up by the inner court are not allowed to be reused. " In order to clearly distinguish the near-branch clan and the distant clan clan, some emperors in the Qing Dynasty even designated special radicals for the second character of the names of the descendants of the near-branch clan to show their favor. Emperor Qianlong formulated the word ""奕" and "Yi" for his great-grandchildren. At the same time as the radical ""yan", the second character in the names of his great-nephews and grandchildren was also designated as the radical "糳". Any violation will be severely punished. Qianlong stills Emperor Jiaqing in the sixth year of Jiaqing (1801 In the year of Jiaqing (1806), an edict was issued: all the descendants of the emperor's brothers would be named by the emperor, further strengthening the royal naming ceremony established during the Kangxi period. In the eleventh year of Jiaqing (1806), Emperor Jiaqing learned from a memorial that his The nephew and Prince of Duoluocha County, Mianyi, not only secretly named his eldest son and second son Yiming and Yichen, but the latter word also did not use the radical of the word "糸 (纺)" prescribed by Emperor Qianlong. Jiaqing Emperor Long Yan was furious and issued an edict to denounce Mianyi. " " is a private use of the radical of the word '金' to name the two sons of Yi. It is not like a close sect, and they are alienated from each other. What is their intention? "Mian Yi paid a heavy price for this: he quit the Qianqing sect and was dismissed from the post of minister of bodyguards and minister of siege, etc., and handed it over to the clan government for review. He privately named his sons Yi Ming and Yi Zhen. The imperial edict was changed to Yi Hui and Yi Yan. Due to his involvement, Prince Yi Yongxuan, Prince Ding Mian'en, Beile Yongxuan, Beizi Yongshuo and other clan nobles were all handed over to the Ministry for discussion (Photo from "Emperor Jiaqing"). 3) Adhere to the traditional naming customs of the Manchu people. After the Qing royal family established the Central Plains, although they absorbed the naming rituals of the Han people, they did not abandon the naming traditions of the Manchu people, but tried hard to maintain them. Manchu names are forbidden to be written in single letters and three-character names are prohibited. Manchu characters are written in Pinyin, and the letters are connected when written. This is different from the Chinese characters that were written separately. Before Qianlong, except for a few close relatives of the royal family, the names of other clans could be given in Chinese. , all need to have Manchu names, and they must be written in Manchu. During the Qianlong period, influenced by the writing habits of Chinese characters, the method of writing Manchu pinyin names separately gradually became popular in Qianlong. In the twenty-fifth year (1760), the decree was issued: "" decree, Manchuria and other names should be written consecutively, and should not be written in single characters. ...Anyone who writes a duplicate letter will be punished. "However, since it had become a common practice at that time to write the names of clans in single letters, if the edict was strictly implemented, the penalty would be severe. Qianlong had no choice but to adopt a flexible approach and issued an edict saying: ""The names of clans from nearby clans can still be written in single names, but the same cannot be done for clans from distant clans. Single writing. " The ban on three-character names also became one of the methods used by the Qing Dynasty rulers to ""stubbornly" maintain the Manchu tradition and refuse to ""assimilate"" to the Han people. Before the Tang Dynasty, Han people often used one character in their names, which was combined with their surname. Since the Tang Dynasty, two-character names have gradually become popular, such as Li Shimin, Wu Zetian, Zhao Kuangyin, Zhu Yuanzhang, etc., which together with the surname are called three-character names. The Qing Dynasty royal family was originally named with Chinese characters. Only two characters are used. Since the Qianlong period, some people in the clan have been imitating the naming method of the Han people and naming their descendants with three Chinese characters. For example, Manbao named his son Manjishan. In view of this growing trend, some people have forgotten their roots. Suspected of violating the regulations, Emperor Qianlong issued an edict in the 32nd year of Qianlong's reign (1767), severely reprimanding him: ""The man whose name is Man, a good and auspicious person, actually takes Man as his surname. ... Jishan is related to Jueluo, which is very noble. Jishan actually didn't respect Jueluo, took Man as his surname, and named him according to ***. What's the reason? ... Let the princes and princes of Jiao Zongren Mansion find out and make changes. This is strictly prohibited and will not be allowed to happen in the future. "In the 19th year of Jiaqing (1814), Emperor Jiaqing also issued an edict because the clan members often used three-character names, ""If Chinese characters are used, only two-character names are allowed, and three-character names are not allowed." Those who did not care about this The kings and beizi who were in charge of the clan were each fined three months' salary; the clan leaders and seniors were all fined six months. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, with the collapse of the Qing regime, more and more Manchus began to use Han names. However, some Qing clans, especially those close to the royal family, still followed the royal naming etiquette. It was not until the founding of the People's Republic of China that many people chose names according to Chinese customs. Wen Shijun said that in the early nomadic life, the Manchu people's naming method was relatively simple. Simply, it may depend on the order of the children in the family, or things closely related to production and life, or based on their appearance, or based on the age of the elders in the family at the time of birth, etc., and so on.
After the Qing Dynasty entered the Central Plains of Dingding, with the increasingly frequent exchanges between the Manchus and the Han and other ethnic groups, the cultures became increasingly integrated. Influenced by the traditional culture of the Han people, the Manchu rulers established a relatively strict naming ceremony for the children of the royal family by the time of Kangxi. System, such as predetermining the generation characters and the radicals of the names, and the younger people need to avoid the names of the elders, etc. Later Yongzheng, Qianlong, and Jiaqing dynasties made many improvements. In order to maintain the purity of the royal bloodline, rulers such as Qianlong and Jiaqing also severely punished the clan members for not following the ancestral system, naming names privately, violating the naming etiquette of the late emperor without permission, envying and imitating the Han custom of naming three-character names, etc. punish. However, with the fall of the Qing Dynasty, most of the naming rituals established by the Qing rulers were in vain, and the naming methods of most Manchus became increasingly the same as those of the Han people. References 1. Feng Erkang: "The Naming of the Manchus in the Seventeenth Century", "Journal of the Palace Museum", Issue 1, 1996. 2. Li Xuecheng: "A Preliminary Study on Manchu Names", "Journal of Liaoning Radio and Television University", Issue 1, 2002. 3. Ma Jingyu: "A Preliminary Study on the Historical Evolution of Manchu Names", "Manchu Language Research" Issue 1, 2011.
(Author: Haoran Literature and History·Yong Sheng) This article is an original work of Haoran Literature and History, a self-media popularization of literature and history science. Reprinting without authorization is prohibited! The pictures used in this article are all from the Internet unless otherwise stated. If there is any infringement, please contact the author to delete it. Thank you!