First of all, it should be noted that whether the author of "Journey to the West" is Wu Cheng'en or not, in fact, the academic community has not yet reached a consensus, and many people have questioned this. It can only be said that before more definite evidence appeared, Wu Cheng'en was the most accepted author of "Journey to the West".
Then we will take Wu Chengen as the author of "Journey to the West". But to explain the origin of Wu Cheng'en's name, you may wish to first look at the genealogy of Wu Cheng'en's lineage.
The Wu family has been passed down for several generations, which can be described as "difficult for heirs". According to the genealogical information that can be verified, Wu Cheng'en's ancestral name is Wu Ding, and his life is unknown; his great-grandfather's name is Wu Ming, who served as a teacher in Yuyao, Zhejiang; Wu Cheng'en's grandfather Wu Zhen died of illness and should have been around forty years old when he was serving as a religious advisor in Renhe, Zhejiang, when Wu Cheng'en's father, Wu Rui, was only four years old. From the beginning of Wu Cheng'en's high ancestors to his father's generation, the names of the four generations were single names.
Wu Rui had a middle-aged son, and only gave birth to Wu Cheng'en at the age of forty-five, so purely from the change of name, the inheritance of several generations of single names to Wu Cheng'en's generation has changed, which must have a certain reason. Wu Cheng'en also had a son, who should have been over thirty years old, and his name was Wu Fengmao. Unfortunately, Wu Fengmao died when he was about 15 years old. According to current information, after Wu Feng's illness, Wu Cheng'en had no heirs. This is the situation of the inheritance of the descendants of the Wu Cheng'en family.
Portrait of Wu Cheng'en
According to research, Wu Cheng'en's father, Wu Rui, dropped out of school at an early age and was clothed for life. Married to Xu Shi, there was a daughter Chengjia; after middle age, he married Zhang Shi and had a son Cheng'en. Wu Cheng'en was born in the first year of Zhengde (1506 AD), and in order to show high hopes, Wu Rui changed the habit of single names in the past dynasties of the benmen and named the newborn "Cheng'en" to the wish of inheriting the favors of the imperial court and serving the country - this may be a major reason for the Wu family to change from a single name to a double name in Wu Cheng'en's generation. This wish of Mr. Wu Rui may be related to the change of Yuan Zhengde in this year (1506).
From this point of view, "Cheng'en" means "to undertake the grace of the imperial court". When Wu Cheng'en was about 60 years old, he served as a county magistrate in Changxing County, Zhejiang Province, as a gongsheng, which can also be regarded as the realization of his father's long-cherished wish to let Wu Chengen "serve the country"!
But there is still a problem with this analysis, that is, if "Cheng'en" must be interpreted as a wish to inherit the favors of the imperial court and serve the country, then it must be Wu Cheng'en born in the "first year of Zhengde (1506 AD)" to explain it!
Statue of Wu Cheng'en
But here's the problem! The specific year in which Wu Cheng'en was born and died, experts have different opinions. Hu Shijian Wu Cheng'en was born in 1501 and died in 1580. Other experts have several theories such as 1500, 1506, and 1510.
I accept the 1506 statement of Mr. Cai Tieying, vice president of the Journey to the West Research Society. His arguments are relatively sufficient, but the process of argumentation is very complicated and will not be repeated here. Of course, it should be noted that the birth year of Wu Cheng'en was set in 1506, and the origin of the name did not originate from Mr. Cai Tieying, which was first proposed by another well-known scholar of Journey to the West, Liu Huaiyu. Mr. Cai Tieying has done more and more solid work on the basis of Mr. Liu Huaiyu's argument.
Stills of Wu Cheng'en played by a six-year-old child
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