Why does every brick in Nanjing's Ming wall carry a person's name?

Answer: Quality control: a failed brick traces to a specific person

Quality control: a failed brick traces to a specific person ✓ — Correct! Each of the ~350 million bricks was stamped with up to 11 levels of names: the worker who made it, the kiln foreman, the supervisor, the county official, the prefecture official. If a brick failed inspection, blame ran up the chain. Called 物勒工名 ('the materials carry the craftsman's name'), it's essentially industrial supplier traceability — 600 years before ISO 9001.

Workers signed bricks out of pride in their craft — Wrong. Pride wouldn't require also stamping the supervisor's and prefecture official's names. The system was top-down accountability, not bottom-up signature. Workers had no choice; the official was held responsible too.

It honors workmen who died building the wall — Wrong. The bricks were quality-control records, not memorials. Workers who died building the wall were not commemorated — that's a Great Wall folk legend, not Ming-era practice. The names belong to the living chain of accountability.