There was a surname in ancient life and a surname in death for one reason.

There is an old saying in China that "if you don't change your name, you won't change your surname if you sit down". Surname is left by ancestors, and it is also an important symbol of family blood relationship. Due to the deep-rooted consciousness of the Chinese people, once they change their surnames, it means the separation of relations with family of origin. And such people are generally considered to be corrupt. Therefore, there is no special reason why people will not change their surnames easily.

Nevertheless, some people have to change their surnames before they die because of avoiding disasters or making enemies. There are not a few such people.

There are 160 households in Xiaotunquan Village, more than ten kilometers southeast of Muping District, Yantai City, Shandong Province, among which 150 households are surnamed Li. Among these villagers named Li, there is a custom of "giving birth to Li and dying of Wu". As the name implies, these people were surnamed Li before their lives, but they were renamed Wu on memorial tablets and tombstones after their death. Since it is a custom, it means that our ancestors did it long ago.

Why is this? Of course, the villagers claimed that they were descendants of Wu Sangui, and the "Wu Wu of Li Sheng" had already begun during the Kangxi period. Wu Sangui was born in Liaodong, the family of a horse dealer; During the Chongzhen period of the Ming Dynasty, Shanhaiguan was guarded by the army. Later, the Qing court ruled the vassals, and Wu Sangui rose up and retreated. After that, Wu Sangui died in Hengzhou, and soon the Wu family became the target of public criticism, and the Qing court wanted to exterminate it. The Wu family in Yunnan fled to Guizhou, and the family in Liaodong fled to Xiaotunquan Village. In order to avoid being chased by the imperial court, these descendants of Wu changed their surnames to Li one after another, and did not restore their original surnames until after their death.

There are more than 1000 people in Wanjiamiao Village, Hujindian Town, Yunmeng County, Hubei Province. The villagers are all surnamed Wan. There is an unwritten rule in this village. When the villagers were alive, their surname was Wan, and after their death, their tombstones were changed to Liu. Why? There are two versions. One saying happened in the Three Kingdoms period. After Cao Pi usurped the Han Dynasty, Liu, who was an official in the dynasty, was beheaded in order to avoid future troubles in the Han Dynasty, but he was not an official. All the people surnamed Liu changed their surnames to Wan overnight to save their lives. Another saying happened in the Ming Dynasty. At that time, an official named Liu Yipin was involved in a political struggle in the imperial court. Later, the court killed his family in the name of rebellion and usurpation. Some people change their surnames to Wan in order to survive. In any case, in the understanding of local villagers, their ancestor was Liu Bang, the Emperor Gaozu.

Of course, there are similar examples in southern provinces. For example, in Hongfeng Village, Chen Da Town, Yiwu, Jinhua, Zhejiang, there is also a saying that "Jin is alive and Liu is dead". This is because the ancestors of the villagers changed their surname to Jin in order to avoid chasing troops.

Give a surname at birth and change it after death, mostly in remote rural areas. The reasons why these villagers changed their surnames first are similar, but they are basically influenced by their ancestors, out of the need to avoid disasters and save their lives; Later, it was changed to the original surname, which also showed the villagers' deep-rooted consciousness of recognizing their ancestors and their fundamental cultural identity psychology.