The richness of Chinese names : Analyses of personal names with special reference to Zuo Zhuàn

Abstract

When we read the Zuo Zhuan,one of the earliest works of narrative history, it is impossible to ignore the huge amount of personal names in it; According to published statistics, This book includes 2455 different persons who are referred to by no less than 3454 names. It is clear that there are many more names than the number of persons, which means many people have more than one names,and this presents us some questions: Why there are so many types of names? What are they? Why people need so many names? How the naming system works? This article will try to answer these questions by discussing several different aspects of personal names from Zuo Zhuan.

It seems like Chinese always have a great passion for names. In the long river of Chinese history, Chinese people showed great creativity of making new types of names, and left us a massive system of making and using these names.The main propose of this thesis is to show readers the multiformity of Chinese naming culture by discussing several topics about personal names from Zuo Zhuan, and to open up a new study field for people who interested about Chinese names.