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The CFO Is Zhou Yu. The Company Is Named Pig-Liang Foods. The Internet Has Questions.

Sometime before 2025, a food company in China registered the name 猪葛亮食品有限公司.

猪葛亮 (Zhū Gě Liàng). Read it slowly. 猪 means pig. 葛 and 亮 are the second and third characters of 诸葛亮 — Zhuge Liang, the supreme strategist of the Three Kingdoms period, one of the most celebrated figures in Chinese history. The pun: replace 诸 (a classical clan-name prefix) with 猪 (pig). Pig-Ge-Liang. A pork food company run by a person whose historical rival was Zhuge Liang.

The legal representative's name: 周瑜 (Zhōu Yú) — Zhou Yu, the brilliant military commander who spent his career in direct competition with Zhuge Liang. In the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zhou Yu famously died of frustration after being repeatedly outmaneuvered by Zhuge Liang, muttering: "既生瑜，何生亮" — "If Zhou Yu was born, why was Zhuge Liang also born?"

A man named Zhou Yu registered a company called Pig-Liang Foods. The internet found this extraordinary.

The aftermath

Descendants of the Zhuge family — the clan still exists, primarily in Shandong and Zhejiang — contacted media to express their objection to the use of the name for a pork company. They argued that using a great ancestor's name to sell pig products was disrespectful. The company, reportedly, began the process of deregistration shortly after the story spread.

Using historical figures in Chinese naming: the three rules

Chinese history is a vast reservoir of naming material. Parents regularly draw on classical figures for character inspiration, poetic allusion, and cultural depth. But this comes with rules that the 猪葛亮 company violated in every possible way:

1. Allusion, not appropriation. A name like 孔明 (Kǒng Míng, Zhuge Liang's courtesy name) used as a given name is an allusion — it evokes the figure's wisdom without claiming his identity. Naming a company 猪葛亮 is appropriation: it uses the figure's actual name, altered for a product he would have found insulting.
2. The product must be worthy of the figure. Naming a tea house after a poet is an honour. Naming a pork company after a vegetarian strategist from an era that considered pig-selling a low trade is an insult encoded as a pun.
3. Check for living descendants. Chinese family clans have long memories. The Zhuge family's response was mild compared to what corporate legal teams can produce. For personal naming, this rule translates differently: avoid exact replication of a revered ancestor's name, which most families consider taboo.

What Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang teach us about naming philosophy

The 猪葛亮 case is extreme, but it points to something subtler. Chinese naming has always drawn on history because Chinese history is the culture's shared library. A name that references Qu Yuan, Su Shi, or Wang Xizhi borrows from that library legitimately — as an allusion, not a claim.

The best historically-allusive names are ones where you have to know the source to recognize the reference, but the name stands on its own even if you don't. 子美 (Zǐ Měi) is Du Fu's courtesy name — but it also simply means "beautiful child." 太白 (Tài Bái) evokes Li Bai — but it also means "great brightness." The allusion enriches; it does not require.

A name that is only a pun, by contrast, collapses the moment the pun is explained and judged. 猪葛亮 has nowhere to go once you stop laughing.

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