I have a nasty name of my own, and I know it's vulgar and I don't plan to change it, but I'm really interested in people's names.
Choosing a name for someone is a lightweight, small-scale creation. In the old days, my grandfather rested his feet on the stove in winter, smoked a hookah, and named his new grandson, calling him whatever he was. Call him the bare lintel, and he will have to work hard to bare the lintel, call him Zuyin, call him the inheritor, and he will always remember his grandfather, and call him Hesheng, and his life will have a little more of the color of the pond in June.
Except for the people in the novel, few people live up to their name (often counterproductively, the name represents a need, a need.) Nine out of ten poor people are called Jin Gui, Ah Fu, and Dayou. But in any case, the name is associated with a person's appearance, character, and creates the impression of the whole. So taking a name is a kind of creation.
I like to choose names for people, even though I haven't had a chance to practice them yet. It seems that only parents and teachers in the countryside have this right. In addition to them, there are the masters, wives and dancers who buy girls. It's a pity that these people are always perfunctory, because there are examples to help, children should be called Maotou, Ermaotou, Sanmaotou, girls should be called Ruyi, and dancers should be called Manna.
Catholic priests and Jesuit priests also name baptized babies (which is presumably the most interesting part of their ministry), but they can never jump out of the circle of George, Mary, and Elizabeth. I have collected two or three hundred common names for English women, and I am afraid that they are all here, and there are not many that are missing.
How tiresome it is to have to choose a name from that limited folklore and religious history, so that you can meet people with the same name everywhere!
There's an old joke about a man who searches the Bible for a more unique name. He triumphantly told the pastor that he had decided to use a name that no one had ever used before—Satan (the Devil).
Thinking back to us Chinese, there is an entire Wang Yun five major dictionary for us to search for two appropriate words to represent ourselves, with such a rich range of choices, and it seems unforgivable that some people are still willing to call Xiuzhen and Zijing.
An appropriate name is not necessarily novel, elegant, or generous, but all benefits are to create a clear artistic conception that matches the identity.
I read newspapers and read classified ads and ball games, lists of student loans, small capital loans, and often find many good names there. For example, "Chai Fengying" and "Mao Yijian", is there anyone among them who is about to come out? Mao Yijian's sour cold, needless to say, Chai Fengying is not only a standard small jasper, as if there is a popular story in her name. In the near future, I hope to be able to write a novel with Chai Fengying as the main character.
Some people say that names are just symbols and don't mean much. There are many people who support this on paper, but they themselves use well-structured pseudonyms. Of course, this is just human affection, who doesn't want to be outstanding?
Even in an idealized future world where citizens are numbered like prisoners, with no other name than a number, each number cannot escape its unique charm. Three and seven are handsome, and two is honest. In Zhang Hatshui's "The Qinhuai Family", the naughty girl is called Xiaochun, and Erchun is her Pu Ne's sister. In "Deep Night", there is the loyal Ding Erhe and the willing Tian Eryu.
Although the symbolic movement cannot be fully implemented, it can be a rationalized response, because Chinese names are too complicated. There is a name for the milk as soon as it falls to the ground. In the past, people's milk names were quite exquisite, and they did not use "囡囡" and "baby" to prevaricate like now.
The milk name is the only name of most women, because if you don't go to school, you don't need a dignified "scientific name", and after getting married, you simply lose your own existence and become "Zhangmen Li". Everything about a woman is a bit secret, so a woman's name is not easy to tell.
In Xiang Xi's poems, we can see that the newlywed husband calls out his wife's nickname in front of others, which is considered very abrupt and must cause her coquettishness.
The boy's scientific name, Gong Kai was written on the scroll of enlightenment, and when he became an official in the future, he was called "Official Seal", and only the prince could call it. He also has a more free and easy "character" for friends and relatives of the same generation. He has another alias that he doesn't use. As for aliases, that's even more unlimited. When you buy an antique that you are proud of, you change it to an alias and embed the name of the antique into it. Move, change alias. holds a female actor and changes another alias.
Originally, if the name represents a state of mind, why can't the name change with the changing mood anytime and anywhere?
An Gongzi in "The Legend of Children's Heroes" has a "grandmother in the east house" and a "grandmother in the west house". He inscribed a plaque for the East House called "Petal Incense Room", and the West House was "Fragrance Room". He himself signed himself as "the owner of the companion valve". When Master An saw it, he was very displeased, thinking that there was a suspicion of wind and snow and a plaything.
Reading this paragraph, most of us are indignant, feeling that the tyranny of the old family is really pervasive, the son takes a harmless alias, and the father also has to interfere, not to mention that the fate of this alias is at best to appreciate his own wife, not to mention that these two wives were married to him by his father!
However, from another point of view, I still sympathize with Master An. Taking more aliases is, after all, bordering on boredom.
If we're engaged in fundamental analysis, why should a person have several names? Because a person is multifaceted. The same person, the eyes of his parents are completely different from the one he sees in the office - different status, different distance.
Someone likes to have mirrors on the walls and ceiling, looking at himself from different angles all the time, and never get tired of looking at himself. Choosing more names is also the same self-expansion.
Although this kind of self-expansion is not hindered by others, why not use it for self-entertainment? Although it is a kind of spiritual waste, we Chinese have always been inclined to the expense of beauty.
But if we want the outside world to be interested in our name, that's another thing. Maybe we thought that a reader would say when he saw our latest pseudonym: "Oh, Ram Huan, he used the name of Zang Sun Ant when he published his debut novel, and when he submitted to ×× magazine, he was called Mingdi, Bai Bo, and Mu Lian, and Ying Yuan was also him, and some people said that Duan Dai was also him." In the ×× newspaper, he was called Oriental Fashion, and when he edited women's publications, he temporarily became feminine and changed his name to Lin Yanchan, also known as the female concubine. ”
Any big person, if he wants people to remember all this, he still wants to be extravagant, let alone a literati?
A man who does his part and gets a little attention from his part. Within ten or eight years, he had finished what he had to do, or he couldn't do it, and he was forgotten. Society does not have a strong memory, and that is also a matter of course, and no one has the right to complain. ...... There are so many things that you should remember but don't remember!
When I was in school, there were two people with the same name as me, and no one thought our names were funny or low-class. Mr. China has never read white characters when he calls me by name, and Mr. Foreign has a hard time reading names like "Wu Wanyun", his tongue seems to be rolled up and tied in a bow, but when he pronounces my name, it is immediately catchy. This is a very merciful thing.
Now I'm starting to feel like I'm going to be unhappy with my name. Why not pick two beautiful and deep words, even if you can't borrow a little beauty and depth from them, at least the manuscript will not give the reader a bad initial impression?
It seems that someone has said: The first step in the literary world is to take a beautiful and striking name. Is it really "if the name is not right, it will not be good, and if the word is not good, it will not be done"?
China is a country of writing. The emperor changed the yuan when things didn't go his way, hoping that next year's national fortunes would gradually improve. It was originally the twelfth year of Yuanwu, but it was renamed the first year of Daqing, and the unfortunate days of the past came to an end. Excessive trust in words is our characteristic.
Everything in China is so nice and smooth. It is true that if you don't listen to it and see it, you don't necessarily use it, but the people who are useful in the world are often laypeople. I am willing to keep my vulgar name, and as a warning to myself, I will try to get rid of the habit of chewing on words and words of the generally literate people, and find a practical life in firewood, rice, oil, salt, soap, water, and the sun.
Then again. If you want to be a layman, start with a cheesy name, and still "word worship". Maybe I'm just using excuses. The reason why I am obsessed with my name is because of the little memory I had when I chose it.
When I was 10 years old, my mother insisted that I be sent to school, but my father repeatedly made a big fuss about not complying, and in the end my mother forced me to send me like a human trafficker. When filling out the admission card, she hesitated for a while and didn't know what name to fill in.
My nickname is Lang, and the word Zhang Lang is buzzing, not very loud. She thought for a while, and said, "Let's translate the English name into two words for the time being." ”
She had been trying to change it for me, but she didn't, but now, I don't want to change it.