Alternative Names
See also: Naming taboo, Taboo on rulers, and Table of Chinese monarchsFrom their earliest recorded history, the Chinese observed a number of naming taboos, avoiding the names of their elders, ancestors, and rulers out of respect and fear. As a result, the upper classes of traditional Chinese culture typically employed a variety of names over the course of their lives, and the emperors and sanctified deceased had still others.
Current naming practices are more straightforward and consistent, but a few pseudonyms or alternate names remain common.
When discussing Chinese writers, Chinese and Japanese scholars do not consistently use particular names, whether they are private names or alternative names.
- Current
Read more about this topic: Chinese Name
Famous quotes containing the words alternative and/or names:
“Our mother gives us our earliest lessons in love—and its partner, hate. Our father—our “second other”Melaborates on them. Offering us an alternative to the mother-baby relationship . . . presenting a masculine model which can supplement and contrast with the feminine. And providing us with further and perhaps quite different meanings of lovable and loving and being loved.”
—Judith Viorst (20th century)
“A name? Oh, Jesus Christ. Ah, God, I’ve been called by a million names all my life. I don’t want a name. I’m better off with a grunt or a groan for a name.”
—Bernardo Bertolucci (b. 1940)