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 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…
A Name That Carried Across the Pacific
The Yang surname (杨, Yáng) is the 6th most common surname in China, carried by approximately 40 million people worldwide. It traces its origin to the court of King Wu of Zhou (周武王, Zhōu Wǔ Wáng) in the 11th century BCE, making it one of the oldest continuously…
A Heart Cut Open: The Birth of the Lin Surname
In the final years of the Shang dynasty, around 1100 BCE, a minister named Bi Gan (比干) walked into the palace of King Zhou (纣王) knowing he would not walk out.
King Zhou was a tyrant — the last ruler of a dying dynasty, notorious…