Exploring the origin of family names Xingshi 姓氏

Or why are there so many Chinese with the family name Li/Lee/Chen etc.

In our last post, On the many names of the Chinese: 姓、氏、名、字、号, I wrote about the many names of the Chinese and how the modern family/clan name 姓氏 was a merged concept of xing 姓 (which originally signified the matrilineal line) and shi 氏 (which arose to signify status, branch and/or the patrilineal line).

This week, I’m going to explore the origin of some of these xingshi 姓氏.

Xing 姓, the oldest surnames (probably?)

Remember how the the Chinese character for xing "姓" is made up of the characters for woman "女" and born / birth "生" because it signified the matrilineal point? There’s a good chance that any surname character that has the character for woman “女”, has a surname from the matrilineal times and we talked about the "Eight Ancient Surnames" of Ji, Jiang, Si, Ying, Yun, Gui, Yao, Ji“ “姬、姜、姒、嬴、妘、妫、姚、姞”. If you read Chinese, you may even recognise some of these family names from legends and history: the surname "姬" is the surname of the kings of the Zhou dynasty (周朝); the surname "赢" is the surname of Ying Zheng (嬴政), more famously known as Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China.

So if someone has one of these surnames (yes, a few of them are still in use!), they may be able to trace themselves back to one of the original tribes. I personally think that’s a bit unlikely given the thousands of years that have gone by since those times, the paucity of good and reliable records and so on. But it would be really cool if that were the case - imagine tracing your family line (patrilineal only, sorry!) back to the time of the Spring Autumn, Warring States Period.

Origin story of shi 氏 - the multiverse

If xing 姓 had one origin story, the 氏 is a multiverse of origin stories, simply because the shi 氏 was created and applied to a variety of use cases including differentiating status, a newly developed region, denoting partilineal descent etc.. Thus, you would find 氏 referring to your state/country, new ennoblement, official titles, jobs and more. Some very simple examples:

State/Country Names: Many, many surnames originated this way. Some of the most common surnames likely originated this way such as:

• Chen 陈: originates from the State of Chen 陈. The State of Chen was a fiefdom that King Wu, the founding king of the Zhou dynasty¹ granted to the descendants of Shun² in the region called Chen. Later, the State of Chen was destroyed and the now stateless people of the State of Chen gave themselves the surname of Chen.

• Zeng 曾: Similarly, one of the origin stories of the Zeng is that this surname were either survivors of the “鄫子国” （from the Xia dynasty) or descendants of the founder of “曾国” (from the Zhou dynasty).

• A new ennoblement of fiefdom: As a reward (e.g. an outstanding performance in a battle), one is granted a fief and becomes a “nobleman”. The person may then take on the name of his fief.

  • A person who is granted the lands of Baili 百里 would give himself the shi 氏 Baili 百里.

  • Or it could be a straight up link to a place name. The Lin 林family name is purportedly a surname granted by the founding king of Zhou (yes, again) to Bi Jian, the son of Bi Gan 比干. Bi Gan was the uncle of and advisor to King Zhuo of the Shang dynasty (also the antagonist of King Wu of Zhou³). Bi Gan tried to advise King Zhuo but incurred the wrath of King Zhuo who supposedly killed him by pulling his heart out of his chest⁴. Bi Gan’s family fled and his pregnant wife gave birth to Bi Jian at forest or Lin 林. After the defeat of King Zhuo, King Wu granted Bi Jian a new surname, the surname of Lin 林 since he was born in or near a forest.

• Official titles: Someone is raised to an official post in court: him and his family or servants will take on as shi 氏 their job title (live to work!). Some examples:

  • Bu 卜: Served as a 卜官, an official whose role was similar to a diviner, official fortune teller or even a medium to the gods or spirits

  • Taishi / Shi 太史 / 史: Served as an official historian and records/laws. In later dynasties, an astronomer or calendarist.

  • We spoke about Sima Liu in the last post and Sima Qian in the footnotes below. Sima 司马 is one of the top ministerial position in the Zhou and some of the later dynasties, in charge of the military and armies and supporting the country/King - a combined military of defence and chief of army. Descendants adopted the surname.

• Occupation or Skill: Some skilled artisans would take on a shi 氏 signifying their occupation. You can think of this as similar to surnames like "Smith" and “Potter” in English.

  • Tao 陶: Probably worked in pottery or ceramics as the character Tao 陶 stands for pottery or ceramics.

• Foreign surnames from neighbouring peoples or tribes: This is quite common as well.

  • Li 黎 has a few origin stories and one of them is as descendants of the Jiuli 九黎 tribes. Legend has it that these were the southern tribes under the leadership of Chiyou 蚩尤 who battled the Yellow and Flame emperor for supremacy over ancient China.

  • Murong 慕容, Dugu 独孤: Originally Xianbei surnames but absorbed into Chinese. This is due to the Xianbei invasion and the establishment of the Northern Wei dynasty by the Xianbei tribes, as well as the intermarriage with the Chinese and sinicization of the Xianbei during this and the later Sui and Tang dynasty periods.

• Adoption or conversion into a new or existing xing 姓: in some cases, tribes or people have adopted or converted their existing family names into existing surnames. This is especially so for those who are defeated or non-Chinese tribes.

  • We talked about Chen陈 as an example above. Well, some Chen may be descendants of Xianbei people with the surname of Houmochen 侯莫陈 who had converted their surname to simply Chen 陈 during the Northern Wei period.

  • Similarly, the Tao 陶 surname is a Sinicized surname of various Manchu or other Steppe minorities⁵ surnames such as Taogiya 陶佳氏.

So there you have it, a quick, surface exploration of the origins of various Chinese surnames. I may revisit this again as some of the explanations I found did not make sense - why would people name themselves after their destroyed state? Do drop a comment if you have any thoughts or suggestions for a topic.

1. This is King Wu or Ji Fa 姬发. Family name or xing Ji 姬, clan name or shi 氏 Zhou 周 (hence the Zhou dynasty).

2. Emperor Shun is one of the legendary Five Emperors of China, dating back to pre-Xia Dynasty times.

3. King Zhuo was the last king of the Shang dynasty. He was allegedly a cruel, immoral and dissolute ruler. The Shang dynasty was overthrown by (surprise!) King Wu who then founded the Zhou dynasty.

4. The whole story and more is found in the Records of the Grand Historian 史记 by Sima Qian and in more dramatic detail in the Investiture of the Gods 封神演义. Bi Gan was famed and outstanding and treated as a sage. He admonished and criticised King Zhou to change and reform his ways several times. He eventually exhausted King Zhou’s patience who ordered his execution, proclaiming that he wanted to see if it was true that a sage's heart had seven apertures/holes.

5. Minorities today. Many have been sinicized and so the recorded count is probably less than the actual number of descendants.