The invented Chinese names of the 2019 Canadian federal election – ranked
If we expand the ranking to native historical names, I&#x27;ve always found the presence of somewhat derogatory or just absurd names among ancient Chinese figures fascinating and have a hard time fathoming why a parent would gives these to a child.<p>Note the following are not nicknames. These are given names.<p>Some I can chalk up to probably being purely phonetic spellings (不寿 a.k.a. Not-Long-Lived a king of Yue 越, who doesn&#x27;t <i>seem</i> to have lived a particularly short life, but his date of birth is unknown). Others to their names later taking on negative connotations because of their own actions (嫪毐 Lao Ai where 毐 later became used to describe immoral people, presumably because he pretended to be a eunuch, slept with the mother of Qin Shihuangdi, the first emperor of China, and then led a failed revolution against the emperor&#x27;s father, the king of Qin. His whole story is insane. He&#x27;s a performer who does tricks with his large penis who got used in a game of political intrigue by Lu Buwei to protect Lu Buwei from the king of Qin.).<p>There still others that maybe had their names invented or twisted to suit stories. See for example 牛缺(Lacking Niu), a high-ranking scholar who appears in 吕氏春秋 (Master Lu&#x27;s Spring and Autumn Annals) who goes on a trip through the desert, has everything stolen from him, and then is later killed by his robbers for good measure.<p>And yet others may be a result of trying to ward off evil or encourage modesty by intentionally giving children modest or unappealing names.<p>However, there&#x27;s some, especially from the Warring States and earlier, that just seem to be inexplicably absurd names, with a large focus on &quot;not.&quot;<p>晋黑臀 (Black-Butt Jin), also known by his title Duke Cheng of Jin. Perhaps he just had very literal parents.<p>叔孙不敢 (Doesn&#x27;t-Dare&#x2F;Not-Brave Shusun), a Lu court official. Sure his father tried and failed to help Duke Zhao of Lu, but the historical account makes it sound like that probably happened after Doesn&#x27;t-Dare&#x27;s birth.<p>韩不信&#x2F;韩不佞 (Not-Credible Han&#x2F;Unworthy Han). Granted the latter could also mean not given to sophistry, but still why would you take that chance with a child (both meanings are attested to in fairly ancient sources)?<p>秦非 (Not Qin, note order is flipped compared to English names so it&#x27;s literally Qin Not). A disciple of Confucius.<p>皇非我 (Not-Me Huang). An official of the kingdom of Song. Again maybe a result of traditions trying to protect children from evil spirits, but I still find it rather amusing.<p>I&#x27;ve never really heard a good explanation for these, other than given names didn&#x27;t really matter back then, rather it was adult honorary names (e.g. Zi or 字) that mattered more, which sure I guess I can believe. On the other hand, if that was the case I&#x27;d expect a cornucopia of awful names rather than the comparatively few, but still abnormally many, that I observe now.