The courtesy names (字), refers to 表字, or sometime (称字).
- 表字 (biǎo zì): alias; secondary personal name
Well, in ancient China, 表字/字 generally referred to the names Chinese people took for themselves in addition to their given names. These aliases (表字) were related to the meaning of their real names. Often, a senior family member, such as grandpa, might give such secondary name to a child to express the virtue or the meaning of the corresponding real name.
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Often, there would be some cultural reasons behind the aliases.
For example, the real name of Confucius (孔子) was Kong Qiu (孔丘). However, his alias (字) was Zhong Ni (仲尼).
What does 仲尼 mean? In the case of Confucius, 仲 means second (笫二/老二), second in the ranking of brothers.
- 仲 (zhòng): second in order of birth
Since Confucius had an elder brother, he was second in ranking.
How about 尼? Well, Ni is the name of the mountain, formerly known as Niqiu (尼丘). Confucius was born here, so his name is Qiu and his alias is Zhongni. They are all named after the mountain. Further, 丘 means “mound”. According to the Historical Records (史记) of Sima Qian, there were mounds on the head of Confucius when he was born.
Hence, his given name was 丘. Kong (孔) was his surname, so he was called 孔丘.
Now we generally don’t have aliases. However, we do have nicknames (小名). Further, even if someone has an alias, courtesy name, nickname, etc., it wouldn’t carry any legal weight.
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