The Yu (余) Surname: From Shaoguan Statesmen to the Wuyi Diaspora
The Yu (余) Surname: From Shaoguan Statesmen to the Wuyi Diaspora A Statesman’s Name The Yu (余, Yú) surname — Yu in Mandarin, Yee in Cantonese, Eu or U in Hokkien and Teochew — traces its Wuyi roots to a Northern Song minister whose descendants built the grandest clan hall in the diaspora. That minister
The Tan (谭) Surname: From an Ancient State of Shandong to the Wuyi Diaspora
The Tan (谭) Surname: From an Ancient State of Shandong to the Wuyi Diaspora In the winter of 684 BCE, an army of the State of Qi marched against its small neighbor and erased it from the map. The State of Tan (谭国, Tán Guó) — a minor polity in today’s Zhangqiu, Shandong, whose old
The Cai (蔡) Surname: From Zhou Dynasty State to the Wuyi Diaspora
In 1046 BCE, King Wu of Zhou overthrew the Shang dynasty and began distributing territory to his brothers and allies. His fifth brother, Ji Du (姬度), received a fief in what is now Shangcai County (上蔡县), Henan Province. The state was called Cai (蔡国). For the next 600 years, through 25 rulers, the State of
The He (贺) Surname: From Wu State Nobility to the Wuyi Diaspora
The He (贺) Surname: From Wu State Nobility to the Wuyi Diaspora Not every Chinese surname begins with a murder. This one does. If your surname is He — written 贺, not 何 — you carry a name born from one of the most dramatic assassinations in Chinese history. In 514 BCE, in the state
The Guo (郭) Surname: From Zhou Dynasty Nobility to the Wuyi Diaspora
The Guo (郭) Surname: From Zhou Dynasty Nobility to the Wuyi Diaspora The Guo (郭) surname carries one of the longest continuously documented lineages in Chinese history — three thousand years from the Zhou dynasty’s founding brothers to the diaspora communities of the Wuyi (四邑) region (trace your own surname origins with our Surname Compass).
The Luo (罗) Surname: From Fire God Origins to the Wuyi Diaspora
The Thread of a Name Of the hundred family surnames that structure Chinese identity, few trace their lineage to a fire god. The Luo (罗) clan does. The Chinese surname system is among the world’s oldest continuous genealogical traditions, with many surnames reaching back 2,500 years or more to the Zhou dynasty. But the Luo
The Xie (谢) Surname: From Shen Bo to the Wuyi Diaspora
A Name That Carries a Civilization The Xie (谢) surname — the 23rd most common in China, carried by approximately ten million people worldwide — holds one of the most concentrated legacies in Chinese history. In the span of 2,800 years, members of this single family line saved a dynasty from annihilation, founded Chinese landscape
The Feng (冯) Surname: From Northern Yan Dynasty to the Wuyi Diaspora
Three thousand years ago, a Zhou Dynasty prince received a fiefdom in the northern plains of what is now Hebei Province. The territory was called Fengcheng (冯城) — Feng City — and when Bi Gong Gao (毕公高), the fifteenth son of King Wen of Zhou (周文王), took up residence there, his descendants adopted the place
The Zheng (郑) Surname: From Zhou Dynasty Feudal State to the Wuyi Diaspora
In 806 BCE, in the waning years of the Western Zhou dynasty, King Xuan of Zhou granted his younger brother a fiefdom in the Yellow River valley. That fiefdom — the State of Zheng (郑国, Zhèng Guó) — would outlast the dynasty that created it, give its name to one of China’s great surnames, and
The Zhu (朱) Surname: 2,300 Years from Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism to the Wuyi Diaspora
In 1313, the Mongol Yuan dynasty made a decision that would shape education across East Asia for the next six centuries: it declared one man’s commentaries on the Confucian classics the official standard for China’s civil service examinations. That man was Zhu Xi (朱熹), a 12th-century philosopher from Fujian whose synthesis of Neo-Confucianism — his
The Deng Surname: 3,000 Years from the State of Deng （邓） to the Wuyi Diaspora
The Name That Was a Kingdom In the eleventh century before the Common Era, a man named Man Gong (曼公) knelt before the Shang king and received a fiefdom in the fertile Nanyang basin of present-day Henan province. The territory was called Deng (邓). For nearly four centuries, the State of Deng (邓国) navigated the
The Xu (许) Surname: 3,100 Years from the State of Xu to the Wuyi Diaspora
The Name That Carried 3,100 Years In the eleventh century before the Common Era, a man named Wen Shu (文叔) knelt before King Wu of Zhou and received a fiefdom in the fertile plains of what is now Henan province. The new territory was called Xu (许). Wen Shu traced his lineage to the legendary