The Ten Stems in the Kings' Names: What the Shang Rulers Were Called

Open the Shiji's Basic Annals of Yin and read the names down the page. For a while they are ordinary: Zhao Ming, Xiang Tu, Chang Ruo, Cao Yu, Ming, Zhen, Wei. Then three in a row, each with a day-stem: 'Wei died, and his son Bao Ding took his place. Bao Ding died, and his son Bao Yi took his place. Bao Yi died, and his son Bao Bing took his place' (微卒，子報丁立……子報乙立……子報丙立). Then Zhu Ren and Zhu Gui, and then 'Zhu Gui died, and his son Tian Yi took his place — this was Cheng Tang' (主癸卒，子天乙立，是為成湯). Everyone calls him Tang; the annals give his name as Tian Yi.

One list

The list runs on to the end of the dynasty, and the stems keep coming: Tai Ding, Wai Bing, Zhong Ren, Tai Jia, Wo Ding, Tai Geng, Xiao Jia, Yong Ji, Tai Wu, Zhong Ding, Wai Ren, He Dan Jia, Zu Yi, Zu Xin, Wo Jia, Zu Ding, Nan Geng, Yang Jia, Pan Geng, Xiao Xin, Xiao Yi, Wu Ding, Zu Geng, Zu Jia, Lin Xin, Geng Ding, Wu Yi, Tai Ding, Di Yi, Di Xin — the last being the man the world called Zhou. The names are copied in the order the chapter gives them, not rearranged, and no reign lengths are added: the page supplies no years.

Set the names in one line and the stems step forward: jia in Xiao Jia, Yang Jia, Zu Jia; yi in Bao Yi, Tian Yi, Zu Yi, Xiao Yi, Wu Yi, Di Yi; ding in Bao Ding, Tai Ding, Wo Ding, Zhong Ding, Zu Ding, Wu Ding, Geng Ding; xin in Zu Xin, Xiao Xin, Lin Xin, Di Xin; and wu, ji, geng, ren and gui each appear too — Tai Wu, Yong Ji, Nan Geng, Pan Geng, Zu Geng, Zhu Ren, Wai Ren, Zhu Gui. All ten occur somewhere on the list. That is a count, not a rule: the same stem serves several kings, and the next paragraph shows names with no stem at all.

Bao Ding, Bao Yi, Bao Bing

The three Bao names are the odd ones. Ding, then Yi, then Bing — 丁, 乙, 丙, running backwards through the cycle. The chapter records the sequence and offers no explanation, and this article does the same; why the order runs that way is not on the page. Note only that the three follow one another in the genealogy, father to son, with no other king between them. It is generally thought that 報 is part of the name rather than a title, though the page carries no note.

Tian Yi shows why 'the king's name' needs care. In the genealogy he is Tian Yi; everyone else calls him Tang; and before taking the field he says 'I am very martial', and is styled King Wu (號曰武王). One man, three handles — a name, a common name and a style — and only the first carries a stem. The page gives all three without ranking them.

Not every name has one

Nor does every name carry a stem. The first names in the chapter — Zhao Ming, Xiang Tu, Chang Ruo, Cao Yu, Ming, Zhen, Wei, and Qi before them — have no day-stem in them at all. So the description has to be tightened: many Shang king-names contain one of the ten stems; not all do. A sentence beginning 'the Shang kings were named after days' is already further than this page goes. The chapter also gives three kings a second name, and none of those carries a stem: Tai Jia 'was called Tai Zong' (稱太宗), Tai Wu 'was therefore called Zhong Zong' (故稱中宗), and Wu Ding's temple was set up as Gao Zong. Three temple names, no day-stem in any of them, while the three kings' own names — Tai Jia, Tai Wu, Wu Ding — all have one. On this page a king's name and a king's temple name are two different sets of characters, and the stems belong to the first.

Two texts from the period

A text of the period uses the same kind of name. The Book of Documents opens its Pan Geng chapter: 'Pan Geng moved to Yin, and the people were not content in their dwellings' (盤庚遷于殷，民不適有居). Pan Geng's name contains geng. Inside, the king speaks as 'I' and 'the one man' (予一人), never naming himself; the speeches are introduced with 'the king spoke thus: come, all of you, I will tell you my instruction' (王若曰：格汝眾，予告汝訓). So the stem-bearing royal name is not a later historian's invention: a contemporaneous speech uses it. The comparison stops there; it does not tell us why the stem was chosen.

One more page needs its own shelf. The chapter 'Gao Zong's Rong Day' opens: 'On the rong day of Gao Zong there was a crowing pheasant' (高宗肜日，越有雊雉), and then Zu Ji admonishes the king. Here 'Gao Zong' is a temple name, and 'rong day' is a sacrifice plus a day. The Shiji supplies the link: after Wu Ding's death, 'Zu Ji, admiring Wu Ding for making the portent a matter of virtue, set up his temple as Gao Zong, and thereupon composed the Gao Zong Rong Day and the Instruction' (立其廟為高宗，遂作高宗肜日及訓). So this chapter shows two ways of naming — dating an event by a sacrifice, and calling a king by his temple — not a king named by a day-stem. The layers must not be mixed: it proves neither that the stems were sacrifice days nor that they were birth days.

Two explanations, and the gaps

For why the stems entered royal names, two explanations circulate, and the pages settle neither. One ties the stem to the day of birth; it is often repeated, and it is only a saying — the two pages never mention any king's birthday. The other holds that the stem belongs to a temple name or a sacrifice day; that too is a view, not a sentence from these pages. Both stand here side by side, in the form the evidence allows: one view, another view, neither fixed. What the pages give is the naming practice; what they withhold is its reason — and the silence is consistent: the annals list names without a word of explanation, and the two Documents chapters use a name and a temple name without explaining either.

What neither page gives: the rule for choosing a stem, any king's birth or death day, a sacrificial calendar, or the way Shang kings are named in oracle-bone inscriptions. The last is simply not in this material — no oracle bone is quoted here, and the article says so rather than borrowing one. A list can be copied out to the end; why the names were made that way stops at the phenomenon, on these pages.

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