Starting with Emperor Xiaowen[?], every single Han emperor, except the final one of the Eastern Han, has the character of "filial" (孝 xiao4) at the beginning of his posthumous names. "Filial" is also used in the full posthumous names of virtually all emperors of Tang, Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties. For Qing emperors, "filial" is placed in various position in the string of characters, while the those Qing empresses who were given posthumous names, "filial" is always at the beginning.
The number of characters in posthumous increased slowly. The emperors of the Tang Dynasty have names in between seven to eighteen characters. Those in the Qing Dynasty have over twenty characters, for example, Kangxi's name is The Emperors of Order who Observes the Heavenly Rituals with a Solemn Fate, Destined to Unify, Establishes with Extreme Talented Insights, Admires the Arts, Manifests the Might, with Great Virtue and Vast Achievement, Reaches Humanity, Purely Filial" (禮天隆運定統建極英睿欽文顯武大德宏功至仁純孝章皇帝 li3 tian1 long2 yun3 ding4 tong3 jian4 ji2 ying1 rui4 qin1 wen2 xian3 wu3 da4 de2 hong2 gong1 zhi4 ren2 chun2 xiao4 zhang1 huang2 di4).
The woman with the longest posthumous name is Empress Cixi[?], who is "The Empress who is Admirably Filial, Initiates Kindness, with Blessed Health, Manifests Much Contentment, Solemn Sincerity, with Longevity, Provides Admiration Prosperously, Reveal Adoration, Prosperous with a Merry Heaven, with a Holy Appearance" (孝欽慈禧端佑康頤昭豫莊誠壽恭欽獻崇熙配天興聖顯皇后 xiao4 qin1 ci2 xi1 duan1 you3 kang1 yi2 zhao1 yu4 zhuang1 cheng2 shao4 gong1 qin1 xian4 chong2 xi1 bei4 tian1 xin4 sheng4 yan2 xian3 huang2 hou4).
Posthumous names can be praises (褒字) or depreciations (貶字). There are more praises than depreciations. Sima Qian's Records of the Great Historian outlines extensively the rules behind choosing the names:
However, most of these qualifications are subjective, repetitive, and highly stereotypical, hence the names are chosen somewhat arbitrarily.
Because it is given by the descendants, the last one or two emperors of a dynasty are usually without posthumous names.
Ocassionally, politically and culturally insignificant persons, like immediate ancestors of the first emperor of a dynasty, are given posthumous names.
An exception to insignificant ancestor-naming is Lao Zi, the claimed ancestor of the Li family of the Tang Dynasty, was named posthumously (see the "Lao Zi" article). He has been culturally important after death.
The process of naming somebody posthumously is in Chinese called "retroactively posthumously naming" (追謚).
A fuller description of this naming convention for royalty appears in the Chinese sovereign entry.
See also: Emperor of Japan, name, Japanese name, Chinese name
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