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Appropriate names for emperors in a 'Meiji China' scenario?

V

varyar

giver of existential dread
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Hi all,

A friend and I just stared an alternate history detective story set in a world where the Qings are overthrown by the Taiping (themselves soon defeated) and a new Han Chinese dynasty rises and manages to 'pull a Meiji' (to an extent) so that present day China is a constitutional monarchy and the leading world power.

I'm trying to come up with appropriate names for both the dynasty and the emperors. It's not important to the plot, which is far more small scale, but I want to get it right if it does come up somewhere.

What I have at the moment - which I'm not super happy about - is this:

The Yan (flame) Dynasty

Victorious Fire Kaihuo 1812-1885
Purifying Fire Chunhuo 1865-1939
Enlightening Fire Qianghuo 1890-1962
Prosperous Fire Chenghuo 1922-2009
Loyal Fire Zhonghuo 1948-

Suggestions for improvement would be much appreciated, please and thank you!
 
Conster said:
Are these era names (i.e. Qianlong, Kangxi) or given names? Either way I don't think all of these names containing the same charcter "huo" is very common for Chinese naming conventions.

Also 盛火 would be Shenghuo.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the -huo thing was an early idea that I've since dropped.

My current list of era names is as follows, and is based on probably sketchy Google Translation results:

Wanjie 万捷 - ten thousand victories
Fanji 返紀 - returning order
Hongchang 弘昌 - great prosperity
Tiexin 鐵信 - iron faith
Xinxue 新學 - new learning
 
Hmm, Fanji sounds a bit on the nose, Tiexin is a direct calque of "iron faith" and Xinxue looks like it means "amateur" instead. Also 万 is in simplified Chinese while the rest is in traditional-- was this deliberate?

I'm not very creative at making up names unfortunately, but perhaps you could throw in Xuantong for emperor no. 2 for funsies and go with 昭志 "declare the faith" for no. 4.
 
varyar said:
Hi all,

A friend and I just stared an alternate history detective story set in a world where the Qings are overthrown by the Taiping (themselves soon defeated) and a new Han Chinese dynasty rises and manages to 'pull a Meiji' (to an extent) so that present day China is a constitutional monarchy and the leading world power.

I'm trying to come up with appropriate names for both the dynasty and the emperors. It's not important to the plot, which is far more small scale, but I want to get it right if it does come up somewhere.

What I have at the moment - which I'm not super happy about - is this:

The Yan (flame) Dynasty

Victorious Fire Kaihuo 1812-1885
Purifying Fire Chunhuo 1865-1939
Enlightening Fire Qianghuo 1890-1962
Prosperous Fire Chenghuo 1922-2009
Loyal Fire Zhonghuo 1948-

Suggestions for improvement would be much appreciated, please and thank you!
Click to expand...
Okay, names IIRC might be a posthumous thing no you did have one era and one emperor names at this time, but the dynasty name could work, but not as the character for flame but you did have a state of Yan. Can you give us more about this dynasty, like where the revolt it was a part of started? Also, for historiographical purposes if you are going with Yan, what is the name of the person who led this revolt?
 
Conster said:
Hmm, Fanji sounds a bit on the nose, Tiexin is a direct calque of "iron faith" and Xinxue looks like it means "amateur" instead. Also 万 is in simplified Chinese while the rest is in traditional-- was this deliberate?
Click to expand...

Nope, just the results of Google Translate!

Conster said:
I'm not very creative at making up names unfortunately, but perhaps you could throw in Xuantong for emperor no. 2 for funsies and go with 昭志 "declare the faith" for no. 4.
Click to expand...

What does Xuantong mean?

BBadolato said:
Okay, names IIRC might be a posthumous thing no you did have one era and one emperor names at this time, but the dynasty name could work, but not as the character for flame but you did have a state of Yan. Can you give us more about this dynasty, like where the revolt it was a part of started? Also, for historiographical purposes if you are going with Yan, what is the name of the person who led this revolt?
Click to expand...

That's an excellent question! I was going to have it be Zeng Guofan taking charge after the Qings are wiped out by the Taipei but that seems unlikely given his dynastic loyalty in reality, so I'm now thinking of the lazy option of making up another Qing general who isn't quite so faithful in all the chaos.
 
varyar said:
That's an excellent question! I was going to have it be Zeng Guofan taking charge after the Qings are wiped out by the Taipei but that seems unlikely given his dynastic loyalty in reality, so I'm now thinking of the lazy option of making up another Qing general who isn't quite so faithful in all the chaos.
Click to expand...
I actually think Zeng Guofan makes sense: assuming the Taiping sacks Beijing and the Manchus escape to Mukden or similar, only Zeng's Xiang army would be around to fight the Taiping in the South. If not Zeng himself, e.g. he beats the Taiping and decides to invite the Manchus back out of loyalty, then maybe one of his subordinates like Zuo Zongtang would rebel.
 
Conster said:
I actually think Zeng Guofan makes sense: assuming the Taiping sacks Beijing and the Manchus escape to Mukden or similar, only Zeng's Xiang army would be around to fight the Taiping in the South. If not Zeng himself, e.g. he beats the Taiping and decides to invite the Manchus back out of loyalty, then maybe one of his subordinates like Zuo Zongtang would rebel.
Click to expand...

That works pretty well, yes. Thanks!
 
Latest attempt at a list - the translations should be good for the first five since they're actual titles in OTL:

Xuantong 宣統 - proclamation of unity 1811-1872 (Zeng Guofan)
Yiyong 毅勇 - determination and courage 1839-1890 (Zeng Jize)
Kejing 恪靖 - respect and tranquility 1871-1940 (Zeng Guangquan)
Suyi 肅毅 - peace and determination 1893-1986 (Zeng Hongzhang)
Zhongyong 忠勇 - loyal and brave 1917-1999 (Zeng Yulin)
Wanjie 萬捷 - ten thousand victories 1938-2022 (Zeng Yixin)
Yonghan 永捍 - forever defending 1973- (Zeng Zongfang)
 
varyar said:
Latest attempt at a list - the translations should be good for the first five since they're actual titles in OTL:

Xuantong 宣統 - proclamation of unity 1811-1872 (Zeng Guofan)
Yiyong 毅勇 - determination and courage 1839-1890 (Zeng Jize)
Kejing 恪靖 - respect and tranquility 1871-1940 (Zeng Guangquan)
Suyi 肅毅 - peace and determination 1893-1986 (Zeng Hongzhang)
Zhongyong 忠勇 - loyal and brave 1917-1999 (Zeng Yulin)
Wanjie 萬捷 - ten thousand victories 1938-2022 (Zeng Yixin)
Yonghan 永捍 - forever defending 1973- (Zeng Zongfang)
Click to expand...

Working out of noble titles sounds kind of bizarre. Era names kind of had their own formats for them, you could try and crib earlier era names if you wanted to.
 
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