A Study Of People’s Nicknames In The Han,Wei And Six Dynasties

The nickname is a name which the elder give children before the children have a formal name.Compared with the formal names which are used in the social communication,the nicknames are often used among relatives and friends,which are of popularity and privacy.Therefore,these nicknames are rare to be recorded and also ignored by researchers for a long time.In the process of the nickname custom emerging and developing,the Han,Wei and Six Dynasties occupy an important position.The earliest record of the nicknames and the works which focused on the nicknames emerged during these periods.Generally speaking,in these periods,the number of people’s nicknames which are maintained is the most and these nicknames have obvious features.In the few existing studies,the nicknames in these periods are the absolute focus.The paper will take the nicknames in the Han,Wei and Six Dynasties as the subject and trace back the history of nicknames.On the other hand,the paper will also explore the features of the ages through the nicknames and sort out all literatures in the Han,Wei and Six Dynasties which talk about the nicknames as the appendix.The paper is divided into three parts.The first part mainly talks about the emergence of nicknames,which includes three sections.The first section discusses the differences between the nicknames and the sobriquets.Through literature analysis,in all literatures about nicknames in the Han,Wei and Six Dynasties,the titles of the same people were often called the nickname or the sobriquet in different places.So in the Han,Wei and Six Dynasties,the nickname equaled to the sobriquet.On this basis,the paper explores why these two are the same:firstly,the paper will prove that the nickname and the sobriquet are the same in the essence from the anthropology;secondly,the paper will show that the position of the "style name"(字)was strengthened in the Han dynasty,the Wei dynasty and the Six Dynasties.The second section explores the reason for the nicknames.Influenced by the taboo on using the personal names of emperors,former people needed to be care with the name.With the naming taboo system becoming stricter,the upper classes had more demands of the names which should be respected and avoided.So having a formal name becomes increasingly important.The children who were born in the upper family would have a simple nickname which can help distinguish different children in the big family and also provide more time for having a formal name.As time goes on,this becomes a common way to have a name.The third section will see the time when the nicknames emerge.After the comprehensive analysis,the paper finds that the nickname as an independent address may emerge in the late East Han dynasty and become popular in the Six Dynasties.The second part mainly makes a study on the records of nicknames.The first section is to promote a hypothesis.After looking over the notes on the nicknames by Liu Xiao in the A New Account of Tales of the World(世说新语),we can find that the nickname are not a regular introduction,whose existences should have special reasons.The second section looks over the literatures and analyzes Records of the Three Kingdoms(with Pei Songzhi’s commentary),Book of Jin,A New Account of Tales of the World,various history books about the South Dynasty and other works about the nicknames.The writer finds that the record of nicknames does not exist alone but appears together with people’s words and things.The context can be divided into several types.The people who are in the royal families and are mysterious have their nicknames recorded,so have the nicknames about the birth condition.But the nicknames of the officials are popular in the East Jin dynasty and recedes in the Six Dynasties.Therefore,it is very important to explore the nicknames in these periods.The third section will find the reasons.In the Han,Wei and Six Dynasties,nicknames are recorded in large quantity because people seek for close relationship;the marriage network is small while officials are many;people love to comment on things;people love to record the anecdotes and other factors.The third part mainly makes a study on the context of the nicknames.Firstly,in the literatures,the nicknames or characters in the Han Wei and Six Dynasties,the nicknames can be divided into five types:nicknames patter as "阿+name";the nicknames which contain bless;the nicknames which contain the humble meanings;the nicknames which are the names of animals,plants and the ordinary items and the nicknames which can reflect children’s features when born or dreams,fortune telling or the great events.Then the paper chooses the four points to make a detailed illustration:to add the character 阿 before a name is the most common way to give a nickname;"word+奴" is commonly used by the lower classes.The officials in the East Jin dynasty often take this way to give a nick name which may relate to the culture which admires the modesty;the nickname of "阿+奴" is often used by people in the Six Dynasties and can also be the character;some people in the Six Dynasties have their nicknames involve the Buddhism elements but their formal names still carry on the Confucian tradition.