[morningseagulls]

>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.

I'd think that, since 皇 means "emperor", the name is protective in the sense that it's trying to say "no, no, I'm not the emperor".

>I've never really heard a good explanation for these, other than given names didn'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'd expect a cornucopia of awful names rather than the comparatively few, but still abnormally many, that I observe now.

Presumably, honorary names are the ones that are recorded, since they mattered more, not the awful names given by your parents or nicknames.

[dwohnitmok]

This came before the usage of 皇 to broadly mean emperor (i.e. during the Spring and Autumn period before the Qin dynasty), although it is used to describe the three mythical emperors. Here it's a clan name (氏), the common clan name of the kingdom of Song.

When recording names in historical records usually the given name as well as honorary name are given as well (honorary names of these figures are all recorded alongside these given names and are far more ordinary).

[morningseagulls]

>This came before the usage of 皇 to broadly mean emperor (i.e. during the Spring and Autumn period before the Qin dynasty), although it is used to describe the three mythical emperors. Here it's a clan name (氏), the common clan name of the kingdom of Song.

Good to know.

>When recording names in historical records usually the given name as well as honorary name are given as well (honorary names of these figures are all recorded alongside these given names and are far more ordinary).

I think the unusual names you've come across are those that've slipped through the cracks. In any case, Chinese men back then would have been given a few names before they reached adulthood: usually, a "milk name" from their parents and another (usually more dignified) name when they attend school. The honorary name comes much later. The unusual names may have been "milk names" that survived the cull because the bearers might not have attended school, for example.

Of course, the practice hasn't survived into the modern age, but you still see this practice in the Arabic world, where people can have multiple aliases. So what you labelled as the "given name" need not be the "given name" we understand today, but just the name that's survived to adulthood that's not the honorary name, which comes later.