Nanjing comes tops for a number of things at a global level; longest city wall and oldest wooden Buddhist temple being just two. Today, we add to that list the city that has changed its name more than any other. For Nanjing has gone by no less than 70 other names throughout history, thus thoroughly trouncing Beijing with her paltry 30 name changes.
南京在全球范围内的许多方面都名列前茅；最长的城墙和最古老的木制佛教寺庙只有两个。 今天，我们将更改名称的城市添加到该列表中。 因为南京在历史上有不少于70个其他名字，因此以微不足道的30次改名彻底打倒了北京。
So shall we just start, as they say, from the beginning?
那么，我们应该像他们说的那样，从头开始吗？
Two facts to get us going:
两个让我们继续下去的事实：
- Many a street name in Nanjing is derived from being one of the former, ancient names for our fine city;
- Changes to the city’s name generally coincided with a change in dynasty or kingdom.
Nanjing’s earliest urban construction dates back to the Spring and Autumn Period (春秋) of more than 2,500 years ago. During this time, Fuchai, the last emperor of Wu Kingdom, built Tu City (土城) on a small hill in the west of Nanjing, and called the area Ye City (冶城), on account of the meaning of the character “ye” (冶), to smelt, since there were abundant copper, tin and bauxite deposits in the southwest of Nanjing at that time. As indispensable smelting raw materials for the casting of bronze weapons, so the city’s first name appeared.
南京最早的城市建设可以追溯到2500多年前的春秋时期。 在此期间，吴国末代皇帝扶柴在南京西部的一座小山上建造了土城，并称该地区为冶城，因为“冶”一词的含义是冶炼，因为当时南京西南部有丰富的铜、锡和铝土矿床。 作为青铜武器铸造不可或缺的冶炼原料，这座城市的名字出现了。
In the Warring States Period (战国), the King, Chuwei, was deluded by the deceptive words of the local scholars. In order to prevent people from stealing his emperor in the future, he buried gold effigies in the countryside in the east of Lion Mountain as a protection of his position, built a city on Stone Mountain, and named it Jinling (金陵). With jinling also seeing the origins of the city’s military capabilities, the name is still very much synonymous with Nanjing today; jinling Hotel, jinling Evening News, jinling Beer, etc.
在战国时期，国王楚卫被当地学者的欺骗性话语所欺骗。 为了防止人们将来偷走他的皇帝，他在狮子山东部的乡村埋下了金像，以保护自己的地位，在石山上建造了一座城市，并将其命名为金陵。 随着金陵也看到了这座城市军事能力的起源，这个名字今天仍然是南京的代名词；金陵酒店、金陵晚报、金陵啤酒等。
Nanjing later became known as Moling (秣陵) because in 210 BCE, the last time Emperor Qin Shihuang journeyed the southeast, he was accompanied by fortune tellers who saw the dangerous terrain around the jinling Tomb and said to Qin that 500 years later, there would be royal uprising in jinling. Qin was furious, and immediately sent people to cut off the ridges of Fang Shan and make the Huai river, a major tributary of the Yangtze, run through jinling before rejoining the Yangtze, to release any royal aurora. In fact, Qin was so unimpressed that he went so far as to change the city’s name to Moling (秣陵), with “mo” (秣) as in “fodder”; in his eyes, jinling was only a suitable place for animals’ fodder. Today’s fodder in Nanjing can be found on Moling Lu in Xinjiekou and in Moling, a subdistrict of jiangning.
南京后来被称为��陵，因为公元前210年，秦始皇最后一次东南旅行时，他与算命先生同行，他们看到了金陵墓周围的危险地形，并告诉秦，500年后，金陵将发生皇家起义。 秦朝愤怒，立即派人砍掉方山的山脊，使长江的主要支流淮河穿过金陵，然后重新加入长江，释放任何皇家极光。 事实上，秦没有留下深刻印象，甚至将这座城市改名为秣陵，用“秣”和“饲料”一样；在他眼里，金陵只是一个适合动物饲料的地方。 今天南京的素材可以在新街口的莫陵路和江宁市的莫陵找到。
During the Three Kingdoms Period, Founder of the state of Shu Han, Liu Bei, persuaded his counterpart of the Eastern Wu, Sun Quan, to move his capital to Moling and rename it Jianye (建业), they being temporary allies in the fight against the third kingdom, led by Cao Cao.
在三国时期，蜀汉国的创始人刘备说服东吴的对应方孙权将他的首都迁往莫陵，并将其改名为建业，他们是曹操领导的第三王国的临时盟友。
At this point, Nanjing’s famous Stone City (石头城) made a surprisingly brief appearance as Nanjing’s moniker, largely simply on account that Sun thought it was kind of cute, given the city’s location on Stone Mountain, before common sense prevailed and Jianye (建业) was again restored.
此时，南京著名的石城作为南京的绰号出现了令人惊讶的短暂出现，主要是因为孙城位于石山，在常识占上风，建业（建业）再次恢复之前，孙城认为它有点可爱。
So far, so good. But then the three kingdoms were united and the names for Nanjing started coming thick and fast.
到目前为止，很好。 但後來三國統一了，南京的名字開始迅速地出現。
In 280 CE, Wang jun of the Xijin Dynasty occupied Jianye (建业) and changed the name back to Moling (秣陵), but then had second thoughts, settling on Linjiang (临江). For his next trick, the following year, he split Linjiang into Jiangning (江宁) and Jianye (建邺), with the Qinhuai River as demarcation that is still, by and large, in use today.
公元280年，西金王朝的王军占领了建业，并将名字改回秣陵，但后来改变了主意，定居在临江。 在他的下一个把戏，第二年，他把临江分为江宁和建邺，秦淮河作为地界，今天基本上仍在使用。
After the last emperor of the Western jin Dynasty, Sima Ye, assumed the throne, he changed the city name to Jiankang (建康) in order to avoid his name. jiankang also became the unanimous choice for the Eastern jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Also, you can find Jiankang Lu in south part of Nanjing now.
西晋末代皇帝司马业登基后，为了避免他的名字，他将城市名称改为建康。建康也成为东晋和南北朝的一致选择。 此外，你现在可以在南京南部找到建康路。
Then came the reunification of China in the Sui Dynasty, when upon Emperor Sui Wendi ordered, “jiankang City, flatten the palace, till and reclaim”, meaning that the entire city should be levelled into farmland. His intention was twofold; to make people forget that it was the ancient capital of a former dynasty, and to avoid it being occupied by another emperor. A name change was naturally in order too; Jiangzhou (蒋州).
随后，隋朝中国统一，隋文帝下令“建康市，夷平宫殿，耕耘，开垢”，这意味着整个城市都应夷为平地。 他的意图是双重的；让人们忘记它是前王朝的古都，并避免它被另一位皇帝占领。 改名自然也是有序的；江州（蒋州）。
Then came the Anshi Rebellion of the Tang Dynasty, after which the government upgraded jiangzhou’s status, giving it the more appropriate name of Shengzhou (昇州), Today’s Shengzhou Lu (升州路) in Nanjing references this, while using the simplified Chinese character.
然后是唐朝的安史叛乱，之后政府升级了江州的地位，赋予它更恰当的名字升州，今天的南京升州路指的是这一点，同时使用了简体字。
In the Yuan Dynasty, the city’s moniker was changed to Jiqing (集庆), meaning “celebratory gathering” because it was a double celebration for Yuan Wenzong, granted King of Huai and promoted to emperor of the nation. Jiqing Men that was opened in the 1990s pays tribute to this time.
在元朝，这座城市的绰号改为集庆，意思是“庆祝聚会”，因为这是元文宗的双重庆祝活动，授予怀王并晋升为国家皇帝。 20世纪90年代开业的Jiqing Men向这一时代致敬。
Finally our friend Nanjing enters our tale. It was Founder of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, who gave the city the name it retains today. Yet, that would be too easy. In the Qing Dynasty, a penultimate name change gave us Jiangning (江宁) again. It was to remain thus until the Xinhuai Revolution of 1911 that led to Sen Yat-sen establishing the Republic of China the following year.
最后，我们的朋友南京进入了我们的故事。 是明朝的创始人朱元璋赋予了这座城市今天保留的名字。 然而，那太容易了。 在清朝，倒数第二的改名再次给了我们江宁。 一直如此，直到1911年新华人革命，导致森中山在次年建立了中华民国。
