Chinese Surnames

Surnames
Chinese surname culture has a long history. Each surname contains vivid and interesting stories. It is a living cultural fossil that transcends time and space and connects ancient and modern. A surname is a blood symbol of a family system, through which everyone can connect themselves to history and culture. China is the first country to use surnames in history. The ancient surnames and surnames have gone through a long period of integration and change.

Origin of Surname
The origin of surnames can be traced back to the ancient matriarchal clan society. The Chinese adopted their mother’s surname in the matriarchal clan society. Therefore, many of the earliest surnames in China are the side or bottom of female characters, such as Ji surname. In the pre-Qin era, surname and surname were two different concepts, surname was the name of the same clan group, surname was the branch of the surname, indicating the name of the tribe branch, which was used to distinguish the descendants of descendants. Noble titles, official positions, or titles added after death according to merit, so nobles have surnames, given names, and clans, and commoners have surnames, given names, and no clans. For example, Huangdi, surnamed Gongsun, was born in the hill of Xuanyuan, so it is called Xuanyuan's family. Men and women with the same "surname" can intermarry, but men and women with the same "surname" cannot intermarry. Because the Chinese discovered this genetic law very early: intermarriage between close relatives is not good for offspring. Later Confucian ethics explained this.

How many surnames are there in China?
The Chinese Calligraphy Dictionary of Surnames includes 23,813 surnames. Currently, there are more than 7,000 surnames in use, including 6,931 single-character surnames, 9,012 compound and double-character surnames, 4,850 three-character surnames, 2,276 four-character surnames, and 541 five-character surnames. There are 142 six-character surnames, 39 seven-character surnames, 14 eight-character surnames, 7 nine-character surnames, and 1 cross-surname. The surname with the least stroke is "一" with one stroke, which is a Lisu surname, derived from the surname B. The surname with the largest number of characters is the Tibetan cross surname, and the surname with the most strokes is 30 strokes. There are more than 7,000 Chinese surnames still in use.

According to ancient documents, the earliest surname in China was "Feng", and the earliest surnames were "Fuxi", "Shennong", "Nuwa's" and so on.

The most commonly used ones in China are "Li", "Wang", "Zhang", "Liu", "Chen", "Yang" and so on. 100 common surnames, accounting for about 85% of China's total population. The Baijia surnames were recently rearranged and no longer begin with the previous "Zhao Qian Sun Li".

Types of Surnames
Since the Han Dynasty, surnames have been mixed into one. Most of our modern Chinese surnames have been passed down from generation to generation thousands of years ago. According to its origin, it can be roughly divided into 12 categories:

1. Take the surname as the first name. Surnames were created as symbols of clan tribes during the period of the clan commune, and some descendants directly inherited them as clans. In matriarchal clan society, the mother is the surname, so many surnames at that time were next to female characters. Such as: Ji, Jiang, Si, Yao and so on.

2. Name the country. As we are familiar with the vassal states of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period: Qi, Lu, Jin, Song, Zheng, Qin, Chu, Wei, Han, Zhao, Wei, Yan, Chen, Cai, Cao, Hu, Xu, etc., all of which have become today Common last name.

3. To name the city. A fief is a fief, which is a fiefdom assigned by the emperor and the vassals to the ministers of the same surname or of the opposite sex. His descendants or those who lived in these fiefs would then become clansmen. For example, when King Wu of Zhou sealed the fief of Siko Chasheng in Su (now west of Linzhang County ), the descendants of Chasheng were surnamed Su. According to statistics, there are nearly 200 surnames named Yi. Due to the long historical evolution, some compound surnames have ceased to exist.

4. Name the township and pavilion. There are not many such cases. Today, the common surnames are Pei, Lu, Yan, Hao, Ouyang and so on.

5. Take the place of residence as the last name. Among these surnames, there are many compound surnames, usually with characters such as Qiu, Men, Xiang, Lu, Li, Ye, Guan, etc., indicating the place of residence in different environments.

6. In the name or name of the ancestors. There are many surnames from this article. According to statistics, there are five or six hundred surnames, of which nearly 200 are compound surnames. For example, the concubine of King Zhou Ping was named Lin Kai, and his descendants were handed down as Lin. Song Daigong's son, Gongzi Chongshi, was named Huangfu, and his grandson was called his grandfather.

7. In order of order. For a family, the surnames are given in order of brothers, such as Bo or Meng for the eldest, Zhong for the second, Uncle for the third, and Ji for the fourth. The descendants follow each other as clans, indicating the order in the clan. But there are exceptions. Zhuangfu, the younger brother of Duke Zhuang of Lu, and the second oldest, originally belonged to Zhong and Zhongsun. Because he was guilty of murdering the king, his descendants changed their surnames to Meng or Mengsun.

8. Take the official position as the clan. Such as Situ, Sima, Sikong, Sishi, Siko and so on. Some surnames with official positions as surnames can also be distinguished from the meaning of the words, such as Ji, Remonstrance, Warehouse, Warehouse, Army, Kitchen, etc.

9. Take skills as the master. Such as witch, divination, pottery, craftsman, butcher and so on.

10. Surnames brought by the fusion of ancient ethnic minorities into the Han people.

11. Take the posthumous title as Shi.

12. Changed surname because of giving surname and avoiding taboo.

Rare Surnames
China is vast and complicated, and it is difficult to pinpoint which surname is the rarest, but the following surnames are usually rare.

"Die" is said to be the second-to-last surname. The "die" surname is mainly distributed in northwestern China, and it was developed from the four-character compound surname of ethnic minorities in the Northern Wei Dynasty. "Death", "Difficult" and "Asia" belong to the three most special surnames in China.

"Di" is said to be the last surname in China. It is distributed in four small villages in Henan. It is said that the surname Nan moved northward with the Xianbei, and the Songhua River was renamed "Nan River" at that time. After several detours, it was difficult for the Xianbei people to set foot on the Korean Peninsula.

"Lao": Yi said that it is one of the four indigenous surnames "Bu, Lao, Ji, Tian" in Foshan, Guangdong. It is said that the Manchu surname "Sakeda" was changed from the Chinese surname, and the Manchu word for "Sakeda" has the meaning of "old".

"Jī" is one of the four indigenous surnames in Foshan, Guangdong. Many people with the Jī surname have changed their surnames to Xi, but there are two old ladies in Foshan who still use the Jī surname.

"Xiāng" is said that in the last year of the Southern Song Dynasty, that is, 730 years ago, a Cha family Xiaolian was hunted down by the Yuan army. He hid in Tibet and had nowhere to live. He fled to the head of the village in Hengli Town, Guangzhou. Put it on the top and change the surname to "Xiang".

"Jiē" surnames are mostly distributed in the three provinces of Jiangxi, Fujian and Guangdong, and it is said that the surnames of Jiejie all originate from Jieyang County.

"Yǐ" surname belongs to the indigenous descendants of Fujian and Yue, and its origin is Tangtou Township, Hanjiang District, Putian City and Chengxiang District in the city.

"Zhí" The ancestor of the Zhí surname was Goujian, and the Zhi family was a descendant of the King of Yue. The village was built in the Tang Dynasty in Tutangxia Village, Yongping Neighborhood Committee of Datang, Sanshui, Guangdong, and the villagers were all surnamed Zhi. Most of the Zhi surname villages or clans in Guangdong and Guangxi originate from here.

"Xuān" The surname Xuan is said to commemorate the ancestor of the ancestor Zhao Tuo of Nanyue, and many Xuan's ancestral halls or shrines have the words "Nanyue County" written on them. Zhao Tuo was the first-generation lord of South Vietnam. Later, he respected Han and cut off his imperial title. Under his rule for more than 80 years, South Vietnam developed rapidly. If the ancestor of the surname Xuan is Zhao Tuo, then the surname Xuan is really a native of Lingnan.

"Tuó" is one of the ancient surnames of Baiyue in Guangdong and Guangxi, mainly distributed in Gaozhou, Luoding, Guangdong and Rongxian, Guangxi. In addition, there are rare and uncommon surnames such as Jie, Bó, Tuō, Xū, Dú, Dāo, Zhī, Dì Wǔ, Dōngyě, Zé, Dǎng, Bīn, Jiǔ, Qī, Hēi, Zhān, Gǒu, Yù, Dǎi, etc.