Talk:Zheng (surname)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is part of WikiProject China, a project to improve all China-related articles. If you would like to help improve this and other China-related articles, please join the project. All interested editors are welcome.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale. (add comments)
姓
 This article is maintained by the Chinese surnames workgroup.
More information about this article...

From VfD:

The 22nd most common Chinese surname. Does that mean we can expect 21 more? RickK 20:40, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

  • There have been lots of surname articles listed on VfD before and all have been deleted in the past. (there, does that satisfy Anthony? No, probably not.) RickK 20:55, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)
    • Of course not. Just because we've broken policy in the past doesn't mean we should do it again now. You can't nominate an article for deletion without a reason. anthony (see warning) 01:10, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. This listing is invalid as there is no reason given for deletion. anthony (see warning) 20:41, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Move to wiktionary —siroχo 20:51, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. I don't see the problem. I'd like to see this for many surnames, or even forenames.—Rory ☺ 00:41, Sep 4, 2004 (UTC)
  • As I understand it, Wiktionary accepted surnames as entries. As such, transwiki to Wiktionary and delete. A soft redirect would be ok, but I don't think it's that necessary. Geogre 02:23, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. It is the 22th most common name meaning that the corresponding part of List of people by name: Zh will soon be spinned off. We just do it a bit earlier. wshun 04:02, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep surname articles as long as encyclopedic content is provided. This one gives a nice overview of the subject. Everyking 13:46, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Explaining Chinese anything to English speakers can be a daunting task, and this article explains the name and its context in Chinese culture well enough. Fire Star 20:27, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. This could expand into a list of some sort, thus it wouldn't belong in the Wiktionary. --[[User:Allyunion|AllyUnion (Talk)]] 03:07, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. In traditional Chinese society, surnames were one of the most important determinants of social standing. Up until the twentieth century surname-based organisations were the largest corporate bodies in China. Because of their important as a sociological phenomenon, Chinese surnames should be kept. --Jie 13:34, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Since I contributed the bulk of the page, let me explain the value of the page. First, the number of Chinese surnames are very limited compared to those of other cultures. There is a few hundred for almost 1 billion people. There are almost 15 million Zheng/Cheng. If only a small percentage of those people cared to know about the history of their family-clan, then it is sitll a large number of people. Why would they be interested? The family plays a very central role in most Chinese families. The history of one's family-clan is as important to some as the history of one's nation or state. With 15 million or more members, Zheng might be bigger than some states or even nations. One need not look beyond the "Tongs" of the various China Towns to understand the importance of the family-clan to the Chinese. These "Tongs" are organizations that only has the surname as a requirement to join. In the past, these organizations helped Chinese immigrants to foreign countries despite the fact that many of its members are strangers to each other and share only a common surname and family history. Once again, the family-clan serves its role in Chinese culture. Thus, the history of a family is of interest to a signficant number of people. The bulk of information here is probably better than what can easily be found on Google. It took some effort on my part to find even this much -- the rest of it is in Chinese. I don't see why the existence of 20 or so such articles on the the Wiki should be such a problem as long as the content is good. With 20 or so Chinese surnames, you can cover the family-clan history of 50% of the Chinese population, which is 1/12 or so of the world's population (assuming China still has 1/6 of the world's population). Lastly, there is a complete listing of all the Chinese surnames in the Wikipedia. This and other articles serves as an extension of that article so as to give depth to it. Chinese surnames are of great value to anyone seeking to understand the culture and history. Personally, I would love to see the expansion of these articles so that the history of the houses of other cultures can be known. It is another way to tie people into history and generate interest. Perhaps these articles are not the most scholarly but they are certainly of interest to a large number of people. Comatose51 09:33, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

end moved discussion

Great!! I've been trying to find more info on the surrname 'Zheng' ( I'm one) and this article provides a good source of info.


[edit] deletion

There is a proposal to create a precedent that names are not encyclopedic. Articles about names regularly show up on various deletion pages and are summarily deleted. Perhaps - since you've been working on an article about a name, you hold a different opinion that you'd like to express. Please do: Wikipedia:Deletion policy/names and surnames SchmuckyTheCat 17:05, 19 May 2005 (UTC)