I read a lot of wuxia and xianxia and I notice a LOT of significant characters have the Murong surname. Even if they’re not the MC, they almost always play a big role. And most of them are good? I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a bad “Murong” except as a scheming family member of a “Murong” MC. What does the name even mean? And why do so many novels have them? Why are they always righteous?
I don't think it's necessarily that deep, but considering the fact that most Chinese characters' names tend to be meaningful and fitting, then it probably has something to do with the fact that the surname Murong has a positive meaning (Mu= to admire, to yearn for, Rong= allow, appearance, etc)? I'm not entirely sure, but those are my two cents.
Maybe because of this context. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murong But I agree with litorea, perhaps if you look at the raws and see what characters are used you may get a better idea. Since each character needs to be chosen in Chinese, names usually have meaning rather than just going by the sound alone.
If you read enough novels and pay attention, you will realize that in every single Chinese novel there is a guaranteed families/clans with the names Su, Wang, Wan, Long, Li, Chu, Zhao, Yu, Ye and some other common ones. But these are the last names than MC tend to have. It is usually tied to some people or families that had their impact on Chinese history one way or another. In addition some of these surnames have a literal meaning like "bright light", "dragon", "shining moon", etc. Chinese love these kinds of names and find them to be very cool. Of course we want to have our main characters named "Brightly shining dragon" or "Divine Moon Light of Goodness"... And btw bad characters or villains are named like "old rotten wood", "meaningless slaughter", "bloody massacre". Not on the nose at all, yea. Imagine Chinese person reads a novel (with understanding what the names actually mean) and sees how MC named Divine Dragon meets a character whose literal name is Bloody Demonic Traitor, and spends the whole arc searching for the hidden traitor, wondering who could it possibly be? Remember that most cultivation novels take place in basically the same setting - the Investiture of the Gods universe. You will often see characters with the same names, similar entities across most novels and of course you will see the same clans and families. There is nothing particularly complex about this - it's just Chinese authors use Chinese history and Chinese culture to make new Chinese novels. People in China love it and everyone pretty much knows what to expect. Even if you read a modern times non-fantasy novel, you still gonna see at the very least families Su, Li and Wang, who are "major families in the Capital" with powerful influence and shady dealings, and therefore MC should't provoke them (and of course it happens). That kind of thing...
Can bet you, for some reasons, if you're a two syllable surname, you're guaranteed to be the good guy. Murong (慕容) Ouyang (欧阳) <--ngl this one iirc there was a baddie or two with this surname somewhere i've read before Shangguan (上官) <--i think this one too, has that rare baddie Zhuge (诸葛) Linghu (令狐) Situ (司徒) Sima (司马) Huangfu (皇甫) and what sgrey said 'it's just Chinese authors use Chinese history and Chinese culture to make new Chinese novels. People in China love it and everyone pretty much knows what to expect' pretty much accurate. so it's always the same old few rehash. and some surnames does give the image/cliche of like say, a 'martial arts' family, or a 'military' family or a 'scholar' family
There was one fantasy novel (non-historical) where one character was actually named Zhuge Liang. I was like - yea, there is no way this one is a bad guy I bet he is also very smart. And guess what? He created something important
tbh i think he's like lawful evil. cause he did some really despicable and stupid things. but i think some people will argue that it's all part of the strategy. in chinese, whenever we think of 智将 we think of zhuge liang, but idk, if he actually go help caocao when when caocao went to the north instead of going south to help sun quan and such, i think the unification would've been faster and not dragged on for so long... or like when he frame his wrongs on Ma Su, framing and then executed Wei Yan, etc... High IQ sociopath that did a lot of bad things but because of one thing he got worshipped like a hero.
Right, I did not mean he would be a paragon of goodness, I meant he wouldn't be a villain since he is well-respected in China. I know he is a bit controversial and not everyone revers him. But if some author makes him outright villain, that author probably won't have a good time. Maybe someone already did, I just haven't seen it...