Talk:Li Changge/@comment-141.70.45.20-20191212135355/@comment-35872267-20191229223028

For starters, ancient Chinese names worked differently compared to today. Ancient chinese people, especially royalty had multiple names. There are milk names, given names, courtesy names, nicknames, school names and so on. Sometimes depending on what emperor rules in what dynasty, they would force people to change their names. In general, for a female princess, she would have a given name, and maybe a scholar name, courtesy name and later a royal name upon marriage. In the case of Li Changge:

Li (李) is her family name.

As for her given name, I'm not so sure, when she was young, she was referred to as Yongning (永寧) by her family members and the imperial court. Even Luo Yi referred to her as Yongning in Chapter 13 despite her introducing herself as Li Changge.

I believe Changge took on her new name, Changge (長歌) after her runaway from the imperial palace to signify her change is status. This was not unusual in anyway, as ancient Chinese people changed names depending if they rise or lower themselves in social status or they become associated with something, such as a family by marriage. She is also officially referred to as Li Changge by the author.

She later temporarily went by the alias Ah Li (阿離) to hide her true identity while she went through an existential crisis. Ah (阿) in front of given names was used by Chinese peasants, while Li (離) is a common hanzi for female names. So Ah Li became a name with no status associated with it.

And after her return to Chang'an, she took on the name Qin Lili (秦離離) so her identity as a former princess would not be revealed. Qin (秦) came from the surname of old man Qin Gu, while Lili (離離) became her new given name. She also used this name while in her native homeland with the Uyghurs, her grandmother including her uncle referred to her as 'Princess Lili' from then on.

Names in ancient China can change on numerous occasions. So our heroine has multiple names associated with her, but since Li Changge is used officially by the author, we use it on fandom as her 'official name'.