During the Three Kingdoms and the Southern and Northern Dynasties in Chinese history, wars and chaos were frequent, heroes were born, and many capable military generals were born. If you list them by name, you will find an amazing phenomenon.
What is this phenomenon? Gossip less, go straight to the dry dish.
Ten generals of the Three Kingdoms: Sun Jian, Lü Bu, Zhao Yun, Dianwei, Guan Yu, Ma Chao, Zhang Fei, Wei Yan, Xu Zhu, huang Zhong.
The Ten Great Generals of the Southern and Northern Dynasties: Yang Dayan, Gao Changgong, Huo Luguang, Wei Xiaokuan, Cao Jingzong, Chen Qingzhi, Tan Daoji, Chen Baxian, Liu Yu, And Yuwen Tai.
As long as we look at the list of the top ten generals of the Three Kingdoms and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, we will find a very interesting phenomenon, the names of the ten generals of the Three Kingdoms are all single characters, and the surnames add up to 2 characters, while the names of the top ten generals of the Southern and Northern Dynasties are compound characters except Liu Yu, and the surnames add up to 3 characters, what is the plot?
Some friends may have said, this is pure coincidence, right?
Is it really a coincidence? We went on to dry vegetables.
Ten Sages of the Three Kingdoms: Xun Yu, Zhuge Liang, Cheng Yu, Chen Qun, Lu Su, Liu Ye, Jiang Huan, Zhang Zhao, Zhang Hong, zhong Xuan.
Ten famous ministers of the Southern and Northern Dynasties: Cui Hao, Wang Meng, Wang Sizheng, Wang Shengxian, Xie An, Huang Fuzhen, Wang Maide, Chen Yuande, Zhang Bin, and Wen Xiaosheng.
From the comparison of the names of the three kingdoms and the ten famous ministers of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the names of the Three Kingdoms period are all single characters, while the single characters in the Southern and Northern Dynasties periods have compound characters.
Why is this happening, and what is this stem?
Before the Han Dynasty, Chinese was not very particular about "names", coupled with a small population, since the Zhou Dynasty has formed a naming custom of single character names.
In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, with the rapid development of the economy, the number of Chinese also increased a lot, and more and more people had the same name, and in this context, the number of people with the name of compound characters gradually increased.
Wang Mang is a strange person in history, doing a lot of inexplicable things, and some people even say that he crossed back. One of the main elements of Wang Mang's reform was the "Retro Zhou Ritual", one of which was to restore the tradition of naming names in a single word since the Zhou Dynasty and incorporate it into the government's normative documents.
With the help of Wang Mang, a social influence of being noble as a single name and a lowly person with a compound name was soon formed.
Here's an example that best illustrates this. Wang Mang's eldest son, Wang Zong, was given death because of the rebellion, but Wang Mang still did not understand the hatred and restored Wang Zong's real name as "Wang Huizong", the purpose of which was to humiliate Wang Zong as a "slut".
The influence of the single name Gui, from Wang Mang's reform to the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty has lasted for more than 300 years, to the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties period, due to the war and the northwest ethnic minorities into the Central Plains, only to break the original value system, the whole society's personal name system became chaotic, to the Tang Dynasty society to take double names gradually increased, and finally became today's custom of double names.
If the friends are curious, or do not believe it, you can go after shuo yourself, to see if you can find a celebrity with a name of 3 characters in the 300 years from the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Western Jin Dynasty, if you can find you are strong!
Welcome to leave a message, write the celebrities you know in the comment area of 3 words, let's discuss together!