What's in a name?

[flemmings]

It's cheering to know that when I'm doing my head-desky 'OK, his name is' (pick someone at random) 'Guan Yu and his uhh courtesy name (takes a while to figure out what a courtesy name is) is Yunchang (雲長) only sometimes it's Changsheng (長生) until he dies when he becomes Marquis Zhuangmou (and let's skip the string of Buddhist names entirely) but for our purposes he's Lord Guan (關公), or Lord Guan the Second (關二爺-- but who's the first?) or else 'Snazzy Beard, Man' (美髯公, and now I see that qwerty really wasn't kidding about that one.) He's apparently even 'Emperor Guan' on occasion except I don't think he ever made it to Emperor...'

...at such times it's nice to know that people can have the same trouble in English. 'You mean Harry and Hal are the same person, and they're both Henry?' Yup. At times the English can be worse than the Russians. Cultures that can get, respectively, Sandy or Sasha out of Alexander mustn't carp at a courtesy name or two-- though by me, 避諱 (taboo hanzi) are another matter entirely. I mean, if you're hoping your son will become emperor, do not give him a name with two of the most common characters in it, guys, that no one can use thereafter.

OTOH I wish I'd known about taboo name hanzi when reading 12K, because the country naming fashion then becomes much more rational.

ETA: Oh! Oh! Just noticed again qwerty's smrterthanu. Yes, oh yes oh yes yes yessss.

Comments

[mauvecloud.livejournal.com]

somebody tell me how to induce her into 'naming' at least ten 3k personages from each camp....

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

If we begged and whined and offered bribes...?

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

Oh, what really bothered me was Richard and Dick, and Robert and Bob. I never got those.

If it's any comfort the twenty names that was considered necessary for a traditional man give Chinese trouble too.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

You mean every man had twenty names? I can think of five- kid name, adult name, courtesy name, pen name, posthumous-- but another fifteen? Lord.

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, I was just exaggerating. But like the example you gave an author usually finds more than five ways to refer to someone, so it's not that much of an exaggeration -- there's refering to him by his ranking among the siblings, which is quite common, and for the lords there's his title, and the various honorary titles bestowed on him by the emperor.

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

Lord Guan the Second

As in the middle Peach Garden sib, not junior Guan? (Reminds me of the possibly apocryphal story of how the film version of The Madness of George III was marketed as The Madness of King George outside the UK, to prevent it being shelved in the horror section as a sequel in the The Madness of George series).

'Emperor Guan'
I assume you're referring to 关帝, yet another honorific used after his posthumous deification, though 关公 is more common.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Mid Peach Tree Garden sib, yes. Of course, wiki might have been thinking junior Guan and just bunged the name in the list it gives to senior.

(Wouldn't someone have remarked on the absence of The Madness of George I and II?)

Should have figured 关帝 referred to a posthumous ascension.