Lady Zhen - Personal Name Issue

Personal Name Issue

Lady Zhen's personal name has not survived. All near-contemporary sources (such as Chen Shou's Records of Three Kingdoms and Xi Zaochi's Annals of Han and Jin) refer to her variously as "Lady Zhen" (甄氏), "Madame Zhen" (甄夫人), "Empress Zhen" (甄后), or merely "the Empress" (后).

The attachment of the names Fu (Chinese: 宓; pinyin: Fú) and Luo (Chinese: 洛; pinyin: Luò) to Lady Zhen came about due to the legend of a romance between her and Cao Zhi, which Cao Zhi specialist Robert Joe Cutter concludes to be "a piece of anecdotal fiction inspired by the and taking advantage of the possibilities inherent in a triangle involving a beautiful lady, an emperor, and his romanticized brother."

A tradition dating back at least as far as an undated, anonymous note edited into Tang Dynasty author Li Shan's annotated Wen Xuan has Cao Zhi meeting the ghost of the recently deceased Empress Zhen, and writing a poem originally entitled Gan Zhen Fu (感甄賦; Rhapsody on Being Moved by Lady Zhen). Afterwards, Cao Rui finds this poem about his uncle's love for his mother, and changes the title to Luo Shen Fu (洛神賦), which could be translated as Rhapsody on the Goddess of the Luo or Rhapsody on the Divine Luo, this second interpretation presumably referencing Lady Zhen's personal name, Luo. If true, this would be a forename unique to early China, as the word 洛 has been a toponym since it entered the language.

The poem contains references to the spirit of the Luo River, named Consort Fu (宓妃), interpreted as a proxy for Empress Zhen by those who believed in Cao Zhi's infatuation with her. This interpretation becomes less allusive if Empress Zhen's personal name was actually Fu.