Zheng (surname)
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Zheng (Hanyu Pinyin) (郑 / 鄭) or Cheng (Wade-Giles) is a Chinese surname. It is currently the 22nd most common of Chinese surnames or belongs to the second major group of ten surnames which makes up more than 10% of the Chinese population, behind the first group which makes up 40% of the population. The ranking varies according to different sources.
The meaning of the surname can be translated roughly as an adjective: either "class" or as "seriousness", "sincere", or "reserved".
In Taiwan, the name is spelled "Cheng". The surname also has taken form outside of Han society as well: in Japanese as "Tei"; and in Vietnamese as "Trịnh". In Korean, the name appears as "Chung" or "Jeong" (정). 정 is the 4th most common Korean surname, with about 4.85% of the South Korean population (2,230,611 people) having this name.
The word Zheng means solemn or sincere in Chinese. The use of it as a surname might have started as an adoption of the "Zheng" in Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of Henan where the family once ruled. However, the history of Zhengzhou predates the family as Aodu of the Shang Dynasty and subsequent renaming of the city came during Sui Dynasty in 581 A.D. after the family has already adopted Zheng as their name.
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[edit] Origin
King Xuan of the Zhou Dynasty made his younger brother Ji You the Duke of Zheng, establishing what would be the last bastion of Western Zhou. Ji You was known posthumously as Duke Huan of Zheng. He later served as prime minister to King You of Zhou. His son, Duke Wu of Zheng, succeeded him after he was killed during a barbarian invasion. The son helped suppress the invasion for King Ping of Zhou and reestablished the Zheng Dukedom. The Zheng Dukedom was later conquered by the Han Dukedom in 375 B.C. and the family has borne the name of the Dukedom ever since.
[edit] Famous people named 鄭/郑:
- Zheng Banqiao, famous artist and poet, Qing Dynasty
- Zheng He (郑和), (1371 – 1435) Chinese mariner, explorer
- King Taksin, born Zheng Chao to a recently ennobled Chinese father and a Thai noblewoman; he was adopted by a high-ranking Siamese nobleman and through his patronage entered government service; Taksin later rallied Siamese forces expelling Burmese invaders from the collapsed Siamese capital of Ayutthya and was crowned King of Siam; he was eventually deposed in a coup and succeeded by Rama I, founder of the Chakri Dynasty
- Nien Cheng (Zheng), author and survivor of seven years of solitary confinement at the hands of the Communist party
- Cheng Man-ch'ing, martial artist, doctor, calligrapher, painter, poet
- Ekin Cheng, singer, actor of Hong Kong
- Sammi Cheng, singer, actress of Hong Kong
- Cheng Yu-tung, a Hong Kong billionaire
- Zheng Chenggong, Ming dynasty military leader better known in the West as Koxinga
- Zheng Yili, well-known translator and author
- Zheng Zhenduo, famous journalist, modern writer, archeologist and literature scholar
- Adam Cheng, singer, actor of Hong Kong
- Zheng Shi Min, Singapore famous model/actor/singer
- Zheng Zhi (郑智), captain of the Chinese national football team
- Jackey Cheng, Canadian dentist and dermatologist
- Kevin Cheng, An actor from Hong Kong
- Teh Hong Piow, Chairman of Public Bank Berhad in Malaysia
[edit] Famous people named 정
- Jung Myung Seok, a controversial Korean religious leader
- Rain (singer), a male R&B and pop singer whose birth name is Jung Ji-Hoon
- Jeong Cheol, Korean administrator and poet of the 16th century
- Jeong Seon, Korean landscape painter of the Joseon era
