Surname culture is one of the most common cultures in the world, and surnames are not the exclusive characteristics of a person, but the exclusive characteristics of a race.
For our Chinese, the surname culture is not only the embodiment of birth, but also the first word of the name, which is of great significance to a person.
We often say that we are descendants of Yan Huang, and many people have a misunderstanding that the Chinese nation regards itself as the descendants of Yan Di and Huang Di, which is only a sense of cultural belonging.
But in fact, this is a misunderstanding, in fact, the title of the descendants of Yanhuang not only refers to cultural inheritance, but also a blood inheritance.
For thousands of years, Chinese have strictly adhered to their surnames, each family has a complete racial genealogy, and the racial genealogy of some families can be traced back thousands of years, up to hundreds of generations, which provides convenience for recognizing ancestors and returning to the ancestors.
"Hundred Family Names" is a book about Chinese surnames, which was written in the Northern Song Dynasty and contains more than 500 surnames of Chinese.
This book has played a huge role in inheriting Chinese surname culture and Chinese characters, which has led to the book circulating for thousands of years and has become one of the three major reading materials of traditional Chinese Mongolian studies.
According to his surname, we can easily find out whether he is a descendant of emperor Yan or a descendant of the Yellow Emperor.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the three great ancestors of China</h1>
There are three recognized ancestors in China, namely The Yan Emperor, the Yellow Emperor and Xuan You. The Yan Emperor is the Shennong clan, in the Neolithic Age, the Yan Emperor was the leader of the Jiang tribe, and the Yellow Emperor was the leader of the ancient Huaxia tribal alliance, because of the Rui of Tude, so he was called the Yellow Emperor.
Xuanyu was the chief of the Jiuli tribe in ancient times. In the beginning, these three races developed separately, and later, the Yan Emperor and the Yellow Emperor united to defeat Xuan You and achieve national unity and integration.
Therefore, the Huaxia people call themselves the descendants of the Yan Emperor and the Yellow Emperor, and in recent years, some historians have also classified the defeated Xuan You as the ancestor of the Chinese nation, so the Yan Emperor, the Yellow Emperor and the Yellow Emperor are called the three great ancestors of Chinese civilization.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > the origin of the Chinese surname</h1>
As we all know, due to changes in the productive forces, human history has experienced matrilineal and patrilineal societies, first matrilineal and then patrilineal.
To define a person, you must first have a name, and the surname culture is derived from this, and in ancient times, surnames were not divided into families. Chinese surname culture originated during the Reign of the Yellow Emperor of Yan.
In the beginning, there were eight surnames in Huaxia, and these eight surnames represented eight different ethnic groups: Ji, Jiang, Jiao, Yin, Yan, Concubine, Yao, and Yao.
Eight surnames of the Ancients
These eight surnames have a lot to come by, let's start with the ji surname. The surname Ji is the surname of the Yellow Emperor, and according to legend, the original surname of the Yellow Emperor was Gongsun, because the place where the Yellow Emperor lived was the bank of the Ji River, the Hill of Xuanyuan. Therefore, the surname was changed to Ji surname, and the Yellow Emperor was also known as Ji Xuanyuan.
The surname Ji, which is still a surname, is the 297th among the hundred surnames, with a population of roughly 540,000, which belongs to a small number of surnames.
However, there are many surnames directly derived from the Ji surname, which also means that the surnames derived from the Ji surname are all descendants of the Ji surname, and the surnames derived from the Ji surname are: Zhou surname, Wu surname, Zheng surname, Wang surname, Lu surname, Cao surname, Wei surname and so on.
These surnames are the most common surnames in the current Chinese, and it is also true that there are 411 surnames derived from the Ji surname, accounting for 82% of the hundred family names.
These surnames continue to play countless surnames, these surnames are numerous and have the largest population, which is why people call the Ji surname "the ancestor of all surnames".
Emperor Yan is also one of the ancestors of the Chinese nation, and the leader of the Tribe of Jiang was called Emperor Yan because he first learned to use fire, so it is said that Emperor Yan was originally surnamed Jiang.
Jiang surnamed Jiang has a celebrity named Jiang Ziya, who is the one who assisted King Wen of Zhou in establishing the Zhou Dynasty, and is also the protagonist of the famous mythological story "List of Fengshen Gods". His descendants changed their surname to Gao because they were sealed in the place of "Gao".
The surname sì (姒) is one of the eight surnames of the ancients, which is derived from Dayu who ruled the water. According to the WuYue Chunqiu, Yao gave the surname of Ji to Dayu.
This ancient sage who did not enter the house three times adopted the idea of "neglect" to control the flood, solve the difficulties for the Chinese people, and became the outstanding holy ancestor of the Chinese people.
"嬴" is an ancient surname that began during the reign of Emperor Shun. Da Fei, also known as Boyi, is a person who works with Dayu to control the flood and has made outstanding contributions to the Chinese nation.
He was good at taming birds and beasts, and when he tamed birds and beasts for Yao, he was given the surname of Ying by Yao because of his good work performance. The surname Yao is a direct descendant of Yao, because Yao was born in Yao Xu, so the descendants of Yao Xu take Yao as a surname.
The clan surnamed Qi was a descendant of the Xuanyuan clan, and his surname was Ji Lian, the eighth grandson of the Yellow Emperor. The surname 妫 is a surname of the same origin as the Yao surname, that is, they have a common ancestor.
The surname of The son is also related to the rule of water by Dayu, after Dayu completed the control of water, Ji, Qi, Tao and others had meritorious service, and Emperor Shun appointed Qi as Situ, sealed him in the shangdi, and gave him the surname of Son.
The eight surnames of the ancients are the most important surnames of the Chinese nation, and there are many surnames derived from the eight surnames, forming a distinctive national culture, and through the traceability of the surnames, it finally points to the Second Emperor of Yanhuang and Xuan you.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > homologous eight ancient surnames</h1>
The eight major surnames in the history of China have evolved into many surnames, and eventually the number of them has reached more than 500, becoming all the surnames that constitute the Chinese nation.
Through the analysis of the origin of the eight ancient Chinese surnames, it can be seen that although there were eight surnames in ancient China, many surnames have homologous relations and are directly related to the three ancestors of the Chinese nation.
The world's surnames, the same way, eventually point to the first few surnames, which also means that we have a unified ancestor, they are the Yan Emperor, the Yellow Emperor and Xuan You.
In the long history, it is full of the evolution of surnames, some people have changed their surnames, and the reasons for changing surnames are various.
Some because of the war, in order to achieve the purpose of incognito, had to change their surnames, especially in the era of dynastic changes, the imperial relatives and nobles had to change their surnames in order to avoid persecution by the kings of the new dynasty.
Some people are because of the king's surname, and the source of the "嬴" and "son" in the eight surnames in the ancients is because of the king's surname. Chinese always pay attention to the origin of the surname, and some people who change the surname will also restore the original surname when the time is right.
Surnames are not only directly related to people's ancestors, but also closely related to the area where they live and reproduce.
Historically, most surnames had a fixed place of residence, and their descendants multiplied and multiplied around it, eventually forming a characteristic distribution of surnames, which explains why some people can say the person's surname through the place of residence of others.
Text/Zhao Helan