What are the cultures of place names?

Categorization and Origin of Place Names

There are many types of place names with different meanings. Only some of the more common kinds can be listed here. Moreover, the boundaries of classification of some of the place names are blurred, which can be said to be divided by family name as well as by topography, so we will not scrutinize their categories in this article.

I. Named after topographical features or features.

such as the Heilongjiang River, Dahonggou, Qingyatou, ShiYaJi, YaoZiMen, in the fork, LingDi, PoTou, ShaAu, HongTuPo, carambola, red cliff bottom, narrow door only, car box, magnetic basin water, wide ping, white stone, black stone kiln, yellow dragon head, cenfeng, and so on. Typical is the "four dragons village", it is backed by a north-south mountain like a dragon and the village is located in the terrain and named Huanglongtou (Dragon King Head), Huanglong Au, Longchaowan and Qinglongpo. There is also the Elephant Trunk Hill in Guilin and so on.

There is another format, which is a combination of family name and place name, a combined part of the first and second formats. In densely populated places with varied landscapes, such names are numerous. Such as * home *, generally the first * is the family name, the second * is generally said to be the landforms, such as ditch, beam, valley, mausoleum, hill, foo, Fanfan, pier, township, pavilion, dock, wall, barricade, garrison, castle, town, store, set, city, field, service, Ping, Ping, door, acupuncture, alkali, temple, tower, Tsui, store, canal, ridge, bay, sinks, geographic, Chuan, field, kiln, city, Taiwan, pool, pass, Tunkan, graves, and so on. Specific such as: Kangjiagou, Lijialiang, Qi Jiazhuang, Majiajing, Xiaojiahui, Liangjiazhai, Caijiaping, Guo Village, He Village, Lujiacun, Niujiacun, Fujiazhanyuan, Jiajiayu, Zhengjiagou, Liujiapo, Zhaojiakou, Guojiaping, Sujialing, Yuanjialiang, Wangjiawan, Zhujiaguan, and so on.

The name "Yuegezhuang" evolved due to changes in pronunciation. Yuegezhuang is actually just Yuejiazhuang, all of which evolved as a result of changes in Chinese phonetics.

During the pre-Qin era, there were many place names in the North China Plain named "丘", "陵", and "阜", which reflected the geography of the time. --The landforms were undulating, and people chose to live on the high ground to avoid floods, and the disappearance of "mound" indicated that they were later silted up by the mud and sand held by the Yellow River and other rivers; during the two Han dynasties, the names of "township", "ting", "foo", "ting", "ting", "ting", "ting", "ting", "ting", and "foo" were used, "Pavilion", "poly" named places, showing the local grass-roots administrative system; the Six Dynasties; dock, wall, base, garrison, fort and other place names with the appearance of words, should be with the big land ownership and social unrest at that time the need for defense; after the middle of the Tang Dynasty, the Mainland After the middle of the Tang Dynasty, the appearance of "town", "set", "city" reflects the rise of small commercial cities, "field", "service" indicates the development of government-run handicrafts. "not and", "not night", "not its" and other coastal place names often with the word "not", can be considered to be It can be considered as a result of the pronunciation of the ancient northeastern coastal nation "Bu", and these place names, which unite ethnic and linguistic history, are very helpful for understanding the migration of tribes in ancient times. Some of the family name + landform word + son of this format, such as: cattle Zhaizi, Hao Yaozi. There are also place names in the format of Bawangfen and Princess Tomb. There is a wide variety of place names related to landforms and surnames, and they are the most common, so I won't list them all here.

Handan, Hebei is a national historical and cultural city. Its name first appeared in the ancient book Bamboo Book of Records. The origin of the name of the place of Handan, now generally to the "Han Shu - Geography Zhi" in the Three Kingdoms, Wei people Zhang Yan's commentary as the source: "Handan mountain, in the east of the city under the single, the end of the also, the outline of the city from the euphony, so add the euphony cloud." It means that the place name of Handan originates from Handan Mountain, under the east city of Handan, there is a mountain named Handan Mountain, Shan, is the end of the mountain range, and Handan Mountain ends here, so it is named Handan, because the outline of the city is from Eup, so the name of Handan is added with Eup ( 阝) beside Shan. Handan has been used as a place name for 3,000 years, which is a special case in Chinese place name culture.

There are many Chinese place names with the character "洲" or "州" (state), and it is necessary to make a special note of them here.

The ancient Chinese made the character "Chuan" to express the small island in Chuan, and then made the character "Zhou". The original meaning of "state" is a small island (or sandbar) in a river, or land in the water. The earliest collection of poems in China, "The Book of Songs - Zhou Nan - Guan Suo", contains the sentence "Guan Suo, in the state of the river". Shuowen Jiezi (Explaining and Analysing Characters in Chinese): "The state, which can be inhabited in the water, is said to be the state. It is surrounded by Zhou. From Chongchuan. In the past, when Yao was flooded, the people lived in the high soil in the water. Or said nine states." In the ancient flood era, people have not yet established the concept of administrative division and zoning units, Emperor Yao once divided the "high soil in the water" "state" into nine regions (nine states) to manage. This is the later "state" as a kind of administrative division of the prototype. However, before the Qin and Han Dynasties, the scope of the "states" was very uncertain, and there were the "nine states" and the "twelve states", as well as the "big nine states". There were also the "Great Kyushu" (大九州). The legendary system of local administrative divisions did not actually exist. In order to strengthen the centralization of power, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty began to divide the territory into thirteen monitoring areas, called thirteen states, and set up an assassin to patrol the territory outside of the area near the capital. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, "state" became the first level of administrative division above the county. In later times, "state" as an administrative division may exist or abolished, the scope may be large or small, but still used to this day. When the "state" was used as the name of the administrative division to express the "red county and divine state", and then use it to express the "land in the water" seems to be inappropriate, so the ancient literati in the So the ancient literati added a "氵" radical in front of the character "州", and used "洲" to replace "州", which gave the character "Chau" has the original meaning of "state", and "state" in the modern Chinese language is limited to the name of local administrative divisions, city names. In our country above the county level with "state" or "continent" in the name of the city, in addition to "Zhuzhou City" and "Manzhouli City "with the exception of" Chau ", the other generally use" state ".

Two, named after the family or ethnic group surnames.

The ancient Chinese social structure model is a patriarchal system with blood relations as the bond. This is the social root of traditional Chinese culture, which determines the social and political structure of Chinese society as well as its ideology. Mencius also said: "The foundation of the world is in the country, and the foundation of the country is in the family". Therefore, villages or cities named after surnames or ethnic group surnames are the most numerous and common among Chinese place names. "Things gather in groups, people are divided into groups", people in patriarchal societies tend to live together according to their family names, and family names become the most distinguishing highlights of place names. Its format is generally * village (township, county). For example, in Lushi County, Henan Province, there are some village names such as Jiangjia, Hanjia, Mijia, Li village. There are also village names in such formats as Qincun Liujia and Qindian Zhangjia.

However, there are also places where it is the other way around, with the place of residence being the family name, such as Qi, where the dukes and daughters of the public family lived in Dongguo, Nanguo, Xiguo, and Beiguo, and these four guos became the family names.

Three, named after the direction. Directions are often also combined with surnames, and this has already been mentioned.

Like "州", "阴" and "阳" are also common in place names. In secondary school textbooks, we all know that "south of the mountain and north of the water is yang, north of the mountain and south of the water is yin". Ancient Chinese geomancy, based on the I Ching, has a lot to say about geomancy (it's not entirely superstitious, see China National Geographic, Issue 1, 2006). Thus, the ups and downs of the terrain were described in terms of yin and yang and the five elements.

Thus, the south of a mountain is called yang because it shines the sun, and the north of the mountain is called yin; and the opposite is true for water (rivers), which is yang to the north and yin to the south. But there are exceptions, Hubei Hanyang but in the south of the Han River, the reason is that the history of the Han water rerouting, from the south of the city of Hanyang to the north, while the city name remains unchanged, so it creates a special case.

Four, named after plants.

such as apple orchard, jujube forest ditch, yulin hill, hemp ground ditch, yanglin kiln, incense grass lawn, cypress stone, lugai ditch, tsubaki tree bottom, dangshan ditch, diminish tree slope, and so on.

Fifth, named after animals.

There are deer valley, horse country, bear ping, crane mountain, cat store, leopard river, sheep spring, ao head, camel road, roe deer ping, sheep slope, shrimp toad hill, lion ping and so on.

Sixth, named after a myth.

There are immortals, divine springs, stone Buddha, Puxian, temple ping, Zen room, Buddha Hall, Mud River, stone cattle, God's head, Goddess of Mercy Hall, Lohan Hall, descending incense ping, lion God, the old stone God, Jade Lady Peak, Wangfutai and so on. The origin of these names are related to an ancient legend, such as:

Shanxi Shenchi County - because of the Ming Dynasty in the territory built in the God's Fort, and in the west gate of the fort there is a pool of water, according to legend, the water "out of no source, no trace, drought does not dry up, the rain is not full. The name is called God's Pond" and got its name.

Fengxiang County, Shaanxi -- according to legend, the Duke of Qin Mu's daughter to get Yu good at playing the flute, attracted good at blowing the hermit Huashan 簘 Shi, know the sound of the encounter, and eventually become a couple, and then flew by the phoenix to go, the Tang Dynasty to take the meaning of the renamed Fengxiang.

Lion God Village - legend has it that a young girl passing through this place encountered a tiger, calling for help, suddenly jumped out of the lion biting the tiger, the female was saved, the lion without trace. The villagers set up a lion god temple for worship, easy village named Lion God Village.

Temple bottom village - in the old days, there is no water here, one day suddenly saw the white deer planing rocks, spring water gushing out. Therefore, the name of the village is Shenquan Village. And because the village is in the north Zhai slope "when the temple" under the so-called "temple bottom village".

Luohantang Village -- legend has it that Wutai Mountain Wenshu Temple transported 100 Iron Luohan lost one through this, the chemical people stayed overnight and sat down in its original form, the villagers built a cliff hall in which to offer sacrifices, and then changed the name of the village Luohantang Village.

Seven, from historical figures or historical events of the name.

That is to say, the historical figures or their related historical activities as the background of the generation of place names and certain historical events and a historical fact as the background of the formation of place names. For example: Changxianmen, Tongyuanmen, Yingenmen, etc.

Qixian County, because the Spring and Autumn period of the state of Jin, the great doctor Qixi eat here, and so named.

Jiexiu (city), because according to legend, during the Spring and Autumn Period, Jin aristocrat Jie Zi Tui Kai Tian hermitage and died in the territory of the Mianshan and.

Jishan (County), according to legend, Houji once in the southern border of the county in the mountains to teach the people to crop manuscripts, later known as the mountain for the Jik Wang Mountain, the place is also named "Jishan" because of the mountain.

Zuoquan (County), the ancient name of Bianyang, after several name changes. 1942 September, to commemorate the martyrdom of General Zuoquan here, renamed Zuoquan County.

Wenxi (County), located in the southwest of Shanxi Province, formerly known as Zuoyi County, because of the Western Han Dynasty Yuan Ding six years (111 BC), the Han Emperor Liu Che, when passing through the area, heard the official army to break the news of the South Guangdong (present-day Guangdong), and then changed the county for Wenxi.

Lingshi (county), named after an ancient meteorite found while digging a river in the 10th year of Emperor Kaihuang of Sui Dynasty.

Eight, place names with allegorical meanings.

These names are either historically documented or sometimes quoted from poems. Generally speaking, they are the names of cities. Shanxi has a Fanchi (county), because "the city in the foothills, the mountains around and arch, and so named". Therefore, "Fanchi" is actually a generalized description of the terrain of the county, which is surrounded by high mountains.

For example:

Chengdu: The earliest explanation of the word Chengdu was given by Le Shi of the Song Dynasty in his Taiping Huan Yu Ji (Volume 7.2). Le Shi believes that the name of Chengdu is "to the King of Zhou Tai Wang from Liangshan stop Qixia, one year into Yi, two years Chengdu, because of the name of the said "Chengdu". Song Zhu Mu, "Fangyu Shengwan" Chengdu Province Road County Name Article that "the cover of the Shiji" so-called three years of Chengdu's meaning, this argument is widely circulated, the impact is greater. There is also a saying that Emperor Du Yu newly camped in this capital city, so the name 'Chengdu' is taken as the meaning of success, achievement and completion. There is also according to the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" has "Chengdu loaded sky" of the mountain, "Cheng Hou of the mountain" of the text records, that Chengdu's "Cheng" is the name of an ancient tribe or country, its character shape for the e and d of the combination, e is the battle-axe of the Its character is a combination of W and D. W is the image of an axe and battle-axe, and D is the image of an arrow or an arrow in a target, and Chenghou used this character as a symbol of the power of the tribal chiefs and kings. The word "Du" in Tibetan refers to the confluence of two rivers. According to this interpretation, the meaning of the word Chengdu should be the place where Chenghou lived (where the two rivers met). Others believe that the word Chengdu is "merely a translation of the two sounds of the Shu language 'Chengdu' in the Chinese script of the Central Plains". Such names, whose origins are disputed, are also relatively common in China.

Changchun: About the origin of the name Changchun, from some geographic data, there are the following statements: First, the name of Changchun is named after the periwinkle flower. This statement, "Manchurian toponymy" slightly mentioned: that is, "the meaning of Changchun, is a synonym for rose"; two said: according to "Changchun County" records: Changchun Hall "set up a place to rule, the original in the Changchun Fort a few miles to the east, the name of the put from this. And the establishment of the place, the day the natives renamed, the new city cloud." From this, the name of Changchun, is because the hall set up in the Changchun Fort neighborhood, and so the name. However, the name of Changchun Fort from where it, according to the 1982 "Changchun geographical names" information: Changchun Fort is named by the new Han Chinese moved here, is the meaning of good luck; another, Changchun Fort is used in the Liao and Jin times of Changchun State's old name, so the place originally belonged to the jurisdiction of Changchun State. Three said, Qianlong several times in the summer to the Changbai Mountain ancestor passed by here found the climate here than Shengjing much cooler, and pleasant scenery, then said "Changbai Mountain under the spring is always in the Yitong River, everyone loves" poem, so Jiaqing 5 years (1800) began to establish a local administrative institutions in this place, to take the first line of the two characters set up

Wuxi: the origin of the place name "Wuxi", there are two kinds of claims. One that is now popular saying that the Zhou, Qin Xishan production of tin, to the Han Dynasty tin, so the name "Wuxi". Another theory is that "Wuxi" was one of the ancient Vietnamese names. "Wuxi" is the word, no real meaning, "tin" original meaning because of the ancient Vietnamese anonymous for a long time, there is no way to prove. Some people think that "Wuxi" and many other geographical names in Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas, such as Fujiao, Yuhang, Jurong, Gusu, etc., all belong to the same QiTou type geographical names, the crown of the first word although written in a different way, but the ancient sound of the same or similar to the ancient Vietnamese language, are the word, no real meaning. These names with the ancient Wu Yue region of the clan migration, dispersal and integration with the Chinese race, the original meaning of the gradual obliteration, but part of the Chinese characters used to record the same sound and preserved, the descendants do not know the origin of, often look at the meaning of the word, presumptuous interpretation. Some scholars believe that "Wuxi" is because of living in Wuxi, an ancient Yue people tribes to a "rule of birds" as a totem and the name, its original meaning should be on the "God".

Gansu: Ganzhou, Suzhou each take a word named. Tang belongs to the Guannei Road and Longyou Road; Song, the eastern part of the Song Qinfeng Road, the western part of the Xixia; Jin divided Qinfeng Road for Qinfeng, Lintao, Qingyuan Road; Yuan early to Ganzhou set Gansu Road (soon to be changed to the Ganzhou Road), for the beginning of the name of Gansu, and then changed the Ningxia province for the province of Gansu; Ming for the Shaanxi Province line of the Department; the Qing dynasty Shaanxi Province restored to the province of Gansu, the name of the province remains unchanged.

Shanxi: in the west of the Taihang Mountains and line name. Most of the Tang belongs to the Hedong Road; Song set up Hedong Road; Jin divided into the northeast and south of the river; Yuan set up Shanxi Hedong Road, for the beginning of the name of Shanxi; Ming set up Shanxi Province, later changed to Shanxi Buzhengzhi; Qing changed Shanxi Province, the name of the province remains unchanged.

Hunan: named after the south of Dongting Lake. Tang belongs to the western province of jiangnan and qianzhong road, later set up hunan observatory for hunan for the beginning of the name of hunan; song called hunan road; yuan set up lingbei hunan road; ming belongs to hu guang province, and later change the province for hu guang province; qing divided hu guang province to set up hunan province, the name of the province is still unchanged.

Nine, merged or changed names.

Mainly refers to the change in the establishment, due to the merger of two place names into a new place name. For example:

Shanxi Linyi (county): Linyi (county) was named after the merger of the former Linjin and Yishi counties in 1954.

Shanxi's lizhuan (county): because of the sweet spring water lizhuan name, indicating that the county has a wealth of high-quality mineral water resources. In 1964, it was renamed Liquan to simplify the word "sweet".

Wuhai City, Inner Mongolia: Wuda City and Haibowan City merged.

Zibo City, Shandong Province: Zichuan County, Boshan County, later set up special zones, jurisdiction of two counties; after the establishment of the name of repeated changes, and finally for the prefecture-level Zibo City.

Panjin City, Liaoning Province: Jinzhou City, Panxian County upgraded, take Panxian, Jinzhou each word.

Through the study of the origin of the name, you can understand the history and culture of the place, as well as folk customs and features. Anle County, Sichuan, there is a "crouching Buddha ditch", people along this intriguing place name, really found a huge stone Buddha and the Sheng Tang Dynasty Shakyamuni Nirvana rock carving statue, but also found that the ancients buried more than 400,000 words of the Buddha's scriptures for the study of Buddhism and the Tang Dynasty culture to provide new information to explore. Xia, Shang, Zhou is China's ancient period of the three successive dynasties, but for a long time to find the physical evidence of the Xia Dynasty. 1977, archaeologists in Dengfeng County, Henan Province, an ancient place called "Wangcheng Gang" clues, where excavated the city wall base groove, the C-14 determination of the Xia Dynasty ruins.