The City With Its Wall Knocked Off Its Own Name
Most Chinese surnames arrive as a pedigree. The Yu (于, Yú) surname arrives as a spelling.
The character began as 邘 (yú): a walled fief on the Yellow River's north bank, in northern Henan. When the fief fell, the graph shed its 邑 (yì) element…
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…