Why is "naming by seniority" once so popular in rural areas not popular anymore? Out of date?

In rural areas, names are generally based on seniority, which is not popular but not outdated. In the past, some people even had their names engraved on the tombstones before they were born. Boys and girls were named on the tombstones accordingly. What I don't understand is, what if there are differences in how many children are born? Is it possible to just leave the name empty, or add more names? I have never asked the elders how to deal with this problem. This problem has always been a mystery to this day.

According to rural tradition, pie is passed down from one generation to the next. This tradition has continued to this day and has not changed, nor has the surname. What has changed is the name. Even if you are asking for a name, you are asking for a surname without changing the name. You are also following the tradition and continuing the tradition. What is different in rural areas now is that the surnames do not change, but the first names are chosen randomly and are not arranged according to family rules.

Nowadays, when choosing names in rural areas, everyone pursues prosperity, wealth, cleanliness and peace. Some people ask their husbands to choose their names, and the names overlap. It is difficult to distinguish between Zhang Guan and Li Daigen, because they all ask the same famous gentleman to choose their names. There are not many good names to choose from, and there are many people who choose them. There are just a few good names over and over again, so we just pick them up and use the same name. This results in too many people with the same and overlapping names, which is not conducive to household registration. Management, etc. Many problems have occurred. For example, students with the same name and surname in the same class and grade have been embarrassed when they gave the wrong name, etc... Because of the same name and the same surname, I once had a case of overlapping electricity bills, and the power supply office was responsible for recovering it. Three years have passed and there has been no news.

When choosing a name, use your own name! The juniors in the front, back, left, and right of the house, who were not from the same family, all followed me and relied on me. It was very annoying, but they had no right to interfere and had no choice but to accept it. I said they might as well just have the same name as me. Forget it, they have the same surname. I don’t know anything about it unless my parents tell me about it.

Naming according to seniority is not a patent for rural people. In the past, this was a widespread naming method that was popular across the country. Take our village as an example. In the last two generations, names were still based on seniority. But now, it has become a "everyone gets what he needs", and whoever wants to be named can have whatever name he wants.

However, even now everyone can choose what they want, and they can name their children whatever they want, but the words used by their elders still cannot appear in the name. This most basic principle still remains. With.

For example, in a family, if there is a person named "Liu Xuewen" in the immediate family or in the main family, then among the descendants, whether they are sons, grandsons, cousins, cousins, etc., Xuehe cannot appear Word.

It would be a joke if a younger generation named their son "Liu Xuenong". In the same way, you can't call him "Liu Congwen". This is also a joke.

In the traditional naming rules for peers, the first character is the surname, the second character is the generation, and the third character is the same, which actually developed from the rule of generation.

For example, if the first surname is Liu, this cannot be changed, and then the second character is generation, such as learning Chinese characters, and the third character can be used freely.

For example, if the eldest son in the family is called "Liu Xuejun", then when there is a boy in the family, he will be called "Liu Xuemou". When naming people in modern times, some people also call them "Liu Xue", which is actually a tampering with the ancient naming rules.

Note that what we are talking about here is between people of the same generation. If you are of the wrong generation, you cannot use the same word.

Having said this, many people will be wondering. Naming based on seniority was so popular in the past, why is it not popular now? Outdated?

We need to first understand what naming according to seniority means, and then talk about why it is not popular now. Ⅰ: What is naming according to seniority?

Many of our current rules mostly come from the Ming Dynasty. This naming based on seniority is no exception.

For example, in the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang gave Kong ten characters, namely: Xi Yan Gong Yan Cheng, Hong Wen Zhen Shang Yin. In other words, after this, the descendants of the Kong family will be named according to these characters. It officially started from the fifty-sixth generation of the Kong family.

For example, if a newborn is born in the fifty-sixth generation, then the name is "Kong Xi". The first character in the front means that the surname cannot be changed, the middle character means that the generation cannot be changed, and the last character can be used freely. of.

Of course, among the first ten characters of the Kong family, we can see that the last five characters include Hong and Yin. In the Qing Dynasty, due to the names of Emperor Yongzheng Yinzhen and Qianlong Emperor Hongli "Hedging" was changed, so it was changed to "macro" and "yan".

In the past, most of the famous families were given names by the emperor. The emperor gave ten or twenty characters, and the younger generations chose their names according to these characters.

Among the people, it is decided by the elders of their own families. For example, in an ordinary family, a poem may be used as the character generation, or a couplet may be used as the character generation.

In short, just to distinguish the seniority in the same family, there are not so many rules about what words to use, but once they are used, they must be strictly followed.

For example, in a family with the surname Wang, they ran out of characters and needed new ones. Several members of the same clan discussed, okay, let’s use "long ropes tied to the sun and the rainbow as the bridge, and strings called the mountains and the moon as the hooks" "Let's take that as the last word?"

Everyone carefully checked the genealogy, and it happened that not all the words in it were used above. So it passed. So it fell on the family tree and was recorded in the family tree. From the next generation onwards, the first character in this couplet, which is the character "长", began to be used.

When there is a newborn boy, the rules for naming are: Of course, the surname cannot be changed, and the generation cannot be changed. Only the third character can be freely used, so the name of the newborn It must be called "Wang Changmou". From now on, people of the same generation within the same clan must be "Wang Chang".

When the next generation of this generation comes, it will be time for the second word "rope", that is, to be named "Wang Shengmou". By analogy, we can discuss finding words after using them.

Therefore, it is very easy to check the generation in the previous genealogy, or to find out someone in the same family. As long as you know his name, you will understand what generation he is. Just look for it among your peers.

In the same way, as long as you see the name, you will know which generation he is in the family and what seniority he belongs to.

This is the reason why names were named after characters in the past, and it is also the meaning of the existence of characters.

So why isn’t it popular now? Ⅱ: Why did generation naming decline?

Generational naming has indeed declined now, but this has nothing to do with being outdated. There are two main reasons for its decline, namely: people are tired of and give up on traditional naming, and people Pursue your own individuality.

Let’s talk about them separately.

Traditional naming, as we have mentioned above, has strict regulations and very cumbersome wording rules. This has a direct consequence, that is, it is very difficult to choose a name.

Some people will say that the previous surname and generation cannot be changed, and only the last character is taken. What is so difficult about this?

This is very difficult. As we have said before, the wording cannot be the same as the elders in the same clan. Note that it is not one generation, but at least eight generations upward, which is what rural people often say. The "Five Servers". Within five servers, names cannot be named with the same character.

It cannot be said that there was someone named "Wang Linsen" in my great-grandfather's generation, and someone later was named "Wang Shusen". Although the characters in the middle have changed, the characters at the back are the same as before, which is not acceptable.

This brings about a difficult result in naming.

In addition, this is a project that needs to be continued for a long time. When a certain paragraph of characters is used up, new characters must be found. These all need to be discussed and fall on the family tree.

Nowadays, it cannot be said that there are no families with genealogy, but there are too few, and people are no longer enthusiastic about it. As a result, people began to slowly give up naming by generation.

The second reason is that people are increasingly pursuing individuality. I don’t know why, but now people’s names have fallen into a strange circle, and they are increasingly pursuing what they consider “beauty” and “personality”.

For example, today’s children have too many names such as “Zi Han”, “Siyu”, “Yuxin”, etc. They are so awkward that they don’t care about the meaning of the words at all. The two words are forcibly twisted together.

The result is that there are a large number of children with the same name, and there are even a dozen children with the same name in one class. There are also some parents who desperately use uncommon words, regardless of how others read them, let alone the inconvenience it may cause to their children in school and work in the future.

Is this a personality? In fact, it is the most common. But unfortunately, most parents don't think so and still enjoy it. In recent years, especially in rural areas, choosing names is really a headache.

But this is not part of our discussion, so we won’t go into too much depth.

Ⅲ: The summary is: in the past, naming according to generation was convenient for compiling genealogy, as well as for the generation of capable people in the same clan, and when tracing the origins of the same clan. It's easy to find records.

But its shortcomings are also obvious, that is, you need to keep searching for words, and you cannot find the same words as before, which will bring limitations. So, the further back it goes, the less popular it becomes.

However, its unpopularity has nothing to do with being outdated. In a sense, whether it is from the connotation of the name or the beauty of the name, most of the names now have nothing to do with the past. There is no way to compare.

The individuality that people pursue nowadays is actually just the same repetition.

Finally, let us say one more thing. Generational naming originated in the Ming Dynasty and flourished in the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. It really doesn’t have a long history, because if we look up, two-character names were particularly popular during the Song Dynasty. If we pursue it further, we would be ashamed of the three-character names during the Three Kingdoms period. None of these can achieve the naming of generations.

In fact, many of our current rural sayings and living habits come from the Ming and Qing Dynasties. In other words, they come from a mixture of Han and Manchu, but we will not go into details here.

There is something wrong with this issue. Naming according to generation in rural areas is not a hit but continues to be used today. It is not outdated now, but it is a trend of diversification due to the impact of the so-called liberal culture in the West. Some large families still use this method. Even if the names are not ranked by words, it is still taboo to have the same names or words as those of immediate elders.

Rural people are named according to their seniority, which is a cultural tradition that has been followed for thousands of years. Why are many rural areas no longer named according to seniority? Is naming based on seniority obsolete? I don’t think we should understand it this way. We should mainly consider it from the aspects of convenience and reputation of naming.

In the rural areas, every household was named according to the family’s seniority. The advantage of this method is that no matter how far away everyone is, they can distinguish who is the older generation and who is the younger generation according to their seniority, and there will be no confusion. The disadvantage is that it is difficult to name it and it is easy to have the same name.

This is the case in my hometown. Although our family has a small surname, it is concentrated in several village groups in one village. We are named according to seniority, and there are many duplicate names. We are the generation with the surname "filial piety". We have nice names that are easy to pick out. We often have the same name, such as Xiaofen, Xiaogang, Xiaode, etc. I know many of them.

I myself have encountered this phenomenon, so when I was in middle school, I changed my name to a simple and non-duplicate name. So far, the phenomenon of duplicate names has not happened, because I didn't name them by seniority.

As time goes by, there are more and more children of the same generation with the same surname. It is becoming more and more difficult to name the same name according to seniority. The name must not only be easy to remember and understand, but also be read and catchy. You also have to feel that your children will like it, so it’s very difficult.

As a result, some parents decided not to use the word generation, as long as the middle character does not refer to the family's seniority, so that the seniority will not be confused due to seniority. For the sake of simplicity, some parents just choose one word, which is easy to name, easy to remember, and sounds novel, unique, and unforgettable.

The advantage of choosing a character is that it is easy to remember and can be used even if it is a character for seniority. Because there is only the first and last name without middle characters, the seniority will not be displayed and there will be no mistakes. Seniority situation.

Of course, this method of naming requires the children to remember their own seniority, so that when they are far away in the future and communicate with people of the same surname and clan, they will not get the wrong seniority. In fact, for people with a small surname, this situation rarely happens.

Take me as an example. My surname is Zhe. During the past thirty years of wandering abroad, I have visited more than 20 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across the country. However, I have rarely visited the same surname, only in Henan. In Zhengzhou, I met a nephew from my hometown, and in Luyi, Henan, I met a family whose seniority we still haven’t figured out.

Judging from the development of the times, the population flow is getting larger and larger. In the future, the number of encounters with the same race and the same surname may increase, but for us with small surnames, it is only a possibility. There won't be many cases.

However, for people with common surnames, such as Wang, Li, Zhao, etc., whether they are working, traveling, or settling down, there will be many situations where they encounter people of the same race and surname. At this time, it is very important to choose a name according to seniority, otherwise it will be embarrassing because of the wrong seniority.

In fact, even if we choose names according to seniority, it is easy to avoid duplication of names. We have tens of thousands of words. If we really don’t know how to pick them, we can hold a dictionary and read them word by word. Arrangements, there are always words that are rarely used in names.

As long as everyone can recognize and remember it, it can be used for naming. A name is just a code name for a person, why do you have to find those nice words? As long as the words are simple and everyone can understand them, it's perfectly fine.

I think the fact that there are fewer people naming according to seniority is mainly due to the ideological limitations of parents. They are afraid that duplicate names will bring all kinds of troubles and troubles to their children, or they are just influenced by traditional ideas. The name is limited, and the parents are too lazy to look it up in the dictionary. How can there be no suitable name with tens of thousands of words?

Therefore, naming according to seniority is not out of date, but because we are afraid of the impact of having the same name, of the impact of poor naming on the children, and because we are afraid of trouble and do not look up the dictionary, so even if we do not use seniority There are also duplications in naming.

In my opinion, there is no problem at all if you use a dictionary as a guide and randomly find hundreds of words that are easy to recognize, remember, and sound loud. This is what I think. I wonder if friends who are parents of children or preparing to be parents of children would agree with it?

Naming based on seniority will never go out of style. Like Chinese solar terms and festivals, they are part of traditional culture and are the recognition and continuation of family, clan blood relations and group relations.

Humans are social animals. As early as ancient times, families, clans and clans were used as units to live together, resist risks, and join groups for warmth. With the development of modern society and the development of the times, artificial restrictions on geography and clan have been greatly reduced, especially due to work and other reasons. , no longer mostly gathered in one place as before, and with the influence of multicultural society, some people think that naming according to seniority is not nice or does not matter whether they are named according to seniority. Therefore, family culture and clan culture have gradually faded, but naming according to seniority is still It is a major trend and will still be the continuation and inheritance of traditional culture.

What is rural area? Naming according to seniority is a custom that has been passed down in China since ancient times. In the past, the royal family and you paid more attention to naming according to seniority than ordinary people. Could it be that the royal family is from the countryside? Also, a lot of people in the city are named according to their seniority, are they also from the countryside? Don’t just say what happens in rural areas, rural areas do not take the blame

Naming according to seniority has been one of China’s traditional cultures since ancient times and is not a phenomenon unique to rural areas. The most typical ones are the four major families of Confucius, Mencius, Yan and Zeng in my country. If you are interested, you can go and research.

Counting from top to bottom, the names after the last name all represent the same seniority. Those currently living are basically "Qing", "Fan", "Xiang", "Ling", etc. In the past, most places had family "ancestral halls" where family trees were kept. Each family and clan names their descendants in strict order, and the names are renewed when the names are used up. Some families can even have dozens of generations. After the founding of New China, these things were regarded as the "four olds" and "broken". Some were even abolished and ancestral halls were demolished. Later generations gradually forgot and did not follow them. In the new century, with the cultural innovation and the integration of Chinese and Western cultures, people are becoming more and more casual in naming and pursue novelty, uniqueness and even in-depth knowledge. The surname culture and naming traditions left to us by our ancestors are gradually abandoned. Now, as the economy improves, many places have begun to pay attention to it again, searching for relatives according to genealogy and rebuilding family trees. Especially those from famous families pay more and more attention to it.

In rural areas, people with the same surname used to follow the same rules. The old rules respected the old and the young, and attached great importance to seniority, which was to prevent chaos. People with the same surname could not get married, and there could be no confusion among the upper and lower generations. During the festival, we have to kowtow to our elders and pay New Year greetings. We make some melon seeds, peanuts, popcorn, candied chestnuts, etc. at the elders’ homes. After celebrating the New Year, I went to the village to watch the lively activities such as gongs and drums, lion dancing, boat welding, and performances. Nowadays, society has downplayed the name. When giving a name, just two characters are used, and the middle character is omitted. It is difficult to distinguish between seniority and seniority. Some go out to work and don’t know anyone in the village, and they don’t follow the rules of seniority. When someone from the same village has an aunt marrying a nephew or even a grandson, what do you call it? I think some traditions are still good, and ethics and ethics that have been developed for thousands of years should be preserved. Not much else to say.

First, it is not a "smash hit", but has lasted for thousands of years. Second, why is it not popular anymore? Because in the past hundred years, the west wind has spread eastward, and all jade and stone have been destroyed. Third, it is not outdated. The most "advanced" and the most "backward" Chinese will support it in different ways.

Not in rural areas, but across the country, especially families with large populations. They all have their own ancestral halls, branches, and branch administrators in each place. It is true that some are less popular and some are not. The reason is that this is a very subjective family behavior, and we are now a family unit, and the family spends less and less time together. Coupled with the impact of family planning, if a parent does not pay attention to this aspect or thinks that his descendants Since they are both girls, it is easy not to explain things about genealogy to the younger generations. Basically, after one generation, they no longer know what generation they are in.