When a person's name is mentioned, most people always think this way: one or several words combined with a surname, which not only represents oneself, but also distinguishes it from others, is called a name.This is generally suitable for explaining the names of modern people, but it is not appropriate to explain the names of ancient people.The name we modern people call is the name in the ancients, and the name that the ancients said includes two parts: the name and the character.For example, Liu Xiang of the Western Han Dynasty, in memory of the patriotic poet Qu Yuan in the Warring States Period, once wrote a series of articles called "Nine Sighs". Among them, "Feng Fen" has these two sentences:

The same name is in the world, and it is brighter than the stars. Wang Yi of the Eastern Han Dynasty commented on the "name": "It is called the original name of Ping." There are ancient and modern times, things change, and words are different, so they should not be treated in general. It turns out that in ancient times, people above the scholar-bureaucrat class were not only famous, but also had a character, and some people were given a posthumous title [shi shi] after death. "Book of Rites·Tan ​​Gong Shang" recorded the customs of male titles of nobles in the Zhou Dynasty: "Young name, Guan Zi, fifty to uncle, posthumous posthumous title, Zhou Dao also." All three have survived.

Since the Wei and Jin Dynasties, some literati and scholars still have titles, as few as one, as many as a few, a dozen, or even dozens.In modern times, writers still have pseudonyms.Characters of certain classes, in addition to their names and characters, some also have nicknames. Chinese names can be said to be diverse and colorful.The name, character, posthumous title, number, nickname, and pen name cannot be explained clearly in a few words, especially the name and character, which are the most complicated.We will introduce them in turn below.To be more precise, it should be introduced in general.