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Do you know the origin of your surname?
Every ethnic Chinese in the world inherits a family surname. As long as we possess Chinese surnames we cannot extricate ourselves from Chinese culture. Our roots are very long and old. They are complicated, intertwined and sometime entangled too. It will be interesting to know a bit about them and find out how, when and where they began.
Every surname has a history behind it. There are more than five thousand Chinese surnames and this book "The Origin of Chinese Surnames" contains the most common 550 of them.
The surname is very important to a Chinese because it is through surname that he can find out to which clan he was originated. When two Chinese first meet, and after the salutaion, one of them will sure ask the surname of the other. If they share the same surname they will be very happy and regard themselves as kinsmen.
The bond of kinship ties is so strong that even today, traditionally, people with the same surname are forbidden to intermarry as they are supposed to have come from the same ancestor. It is considered mildly incestuous for a couple sharing the same surname to get marry.
Legend has it that Chinese surnames originated from Huang Di (¶À«Ò) or The Yellow Emperor, who had twenty five sons. Yellow Emperor's surname was Gong Sun (¤½®]) and his name Xuan Yuan (°aÁÕ), but later he changed his surname to Ji (®V), the name of the river where he grew up. Yellow Emperor established fourteen settlements in different regions of the land of what we now call China. He appointed 14 of his capable sons to rule the 14 settlements. The 14 new feudal lords took on twelve new surnames after the geographical locations which were given by their father. This tradition of adopting the name of a location as surname persisted. It is estimated that 60 per cent of the surnames were named after some geographical locality. Other surnames originated by adopting the names of the ancestors, official positions or the titles.
In ancient time it was not unusual for people to change their surnames to avoid political persecution. In many an occasion the Emperor bestowed his own surname to his loyal officials and generals who then changed their surnames to that of the Emperor. They were proud of sharing the same surname with the Emperor. On the other hand many ordinary citizens who shared their surnames with the name of the Emperors, were forced to change to other surnames because the Emperors did not want their names to be used as surnames by their subjects.
During the Zhou Dynasty (©P´Â 1134BC to 256BC) and before the Spring and Autumn Period (¬K¬î®É¥N 722BC to 481BC) there were only 72 surnames. These 72 surnames were doubled during the era of Han Dynasty ( º~´Â 206BC to 220AD). They were increased to 193 during the Tang Dynasty (­ð´Â 618AD to 907AD). 438 surnames were recorded during the Song Dynasty (§º´Â 960AD to 1279AD). According to the historical documents there were 3736 surnames during the Yuan Dynasty ( ¤¸´Â 1271AD to 1368AD). The literary records of the Ming Dynasty ( ©ú´Â 1368AD to 1644AD) showed a total of 4657 surnames in the land of what we now call China. Nowadays there are more than 5,000 Chinese surname throughout the world.
CHUNG Yoon-Ngan (¾G¥Ã¤¸)
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