The story of 字

word, name

字 is composed of 宀 and 子, which depicts a baby staying in a house, which has the meaning of nurture, but now such meaning is barely being used. In ancient China, people gave babies bynames in order to protect them from evil spirits, such bynames are 字, then 字 becomes the name of adulthood and respect. On the other hand, when we started to learn writing, the first words we learned were our names, so 字 also means word or text.