Names of Chinese Singsong Girls (up to the End of the 19th Century)
- Autores: Irena Kałużyńska
- Localización: ‘Names and Their Environment’: Proceedings of the 25th International Congress of Onomastic Sciences, Glasgow, 25-29 August 2014 / Carole Hough (ed. lit.), Daria Izdebska (ed. lit.), 2016, ISBN 978-0-85261-947-6, págs. 154-163
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
China’s long historical tradition of male dominance and patriarchal authority based on patrilineal descent and patrilocal residence is deeply embedded in its culture and institutions. For more than 3,000 years of the history of China women have held an inferior position within the family and society, and their social status has had a great influence on female personal naming. Chinese ‘famous women’, i.e. the women recorded in various historical documents and biographical dictionaries (999 females of the research material) can be divided on the basis of their ‘professional’ or ‘daily life’ activities into certain social-professional groups. One of these groups consists of singsong girls or special female entertainers (95 females; 9.5%). These professional society ladies were of literary, musical, political, and emotional importance in China. It so happens that in the long history of China singsong girls and prostitutes were almost the only women more freely known and recorded by their given names, occurring together with their surnames or as separate appellations. However, their given names in many cases should rather be considered as being their artistic or stage names, and not their standard given names, bestowed on them by their parents or relatives. Many of these names have their own specific features, and they are meaningful, usually descriptive and affectionate.
