Wang (surname)

Wang
Family name
Meaning king
Footnotes: [1]

Wang (王; pinyin: Wáng) is a Chinese family name and one of the most common surnames in the world.[2] It is ranked 8th in the Hundred Family Surnames, and first in the People's Republic of China's National Citizen ID Information System (NCIIS). Wang is ranked as the most common surname in mainland China, with 92.88 million people bearing this surname.[3][4] Translated into English, Wang literally means "king" or "monarch" (see Chinese noble#Wang; see also King (surname)).

The surname romanized Wang in Mandarin may be romanized differently for persons originating in territories other than northern China. Wang (Chinese: 王; pinyin: Wáng) can be romanized as Wong, especially for people from Hong Kong or from Guangdong. (However, Wong is also used as the romanization for the Cantonese pronunciation of at least three different surnames: Wang (Chinese: 王; pinyin: Wáng), Huang (Chinese: 黄; pinyin: Huáng) and Wang (Chinese: 汪; pinyin: Wāng). In addition, Wang is the Cantonese romanization of the following uncommon family names: 橫 (Pinyin: Héng), 弘 (Hóng), 閎 (Hóng), and 宏 (Hóng).)

In Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, the surname has been romanized as Ong (for Hokkien-speaking persons) and Heng (for Teochew-speaking persons).

The Wang surname is also used in some non-Chinese speaking countries, including Korea, Vietnam, and Japan.

Contents

Origins and development

There were many origins in the development of Wang as a surname, but the main origins that structure the modern surname of Wang were four: Zi, Ji, Gui and change of surnames from other ethnic groups outside of Han Chinese.[5]

Zi house

The most ancient family name of Wang was originated from the surname Zi. The Chinese legend mentions that near the end of Shang Dynasty, King Zhou of Shang's uncle Bi Gan, Qi Zi and Wei Zi were called "The Three Kindhearted of Shang". King Zhou was violent in his rule, and Bi Gan repeatedly remonstrated to the king regarding his behavior. The king refused his comments, and killed Bi Gan instead. Bi's descendants used "Wang" as their surname as they are descendants of a prince, and was known as "The Bi clan of Wang family".[6] The Zi clan existed around 3100 years through Qin Dynasty to Tang Dynasty, and until today. The Zi clan of Wang lived predominantly in Henan during these times, and developed into the famous Wang Family of Ji prefecture.[7]

Ji house

More families of Wang were originated from the royal family of Zhou Dynasty. The original surname of the royal family of Zhou Dynasty was Ji. However, many of them have separated out of the family due to the loss of power and land. Because of they once belonged to the royal family, they used "Wang" as their surname. This family of Wang traced its ancestry to Wang Ziqiao[8]

According to the classical records, after King Wu of Zhou defeated the Shang Dynasty, he chose the capital at the city of Gao. This was known in history as the Western Zhou Dynasty. During the reign of the 21st king, King Ling of Zhou (571 - 545 BCE), the capital was in Chen Zhou, which is the present day Luoyang, Henan. The son of King Ling, crown prince Jin (also known as Prince Jin or Prince Qiao), was reduced to civilian status due to his remonstration to the king. His son Zong Jin remains to be a Situ in the palace, and because of the people at the time recognized him as the descendant of the royal family, they called his family the "Wang family".[9] From this moment on, this clan used "Wang" as their surname. When the 8th generation of the Ji clan of Wang Wang Cuo became a general in the State of Wei, the clan finally regained its status. In the early period of Qin Dynasty, this clan was active in areas of Luoyang, Henan. Between the end of Qin Dynasty and the beginning of Han Dynasty, Wang Yuan and Wang Wei, sons of the Marquis of Wuchen Wang Li, moved to Langye, Shandong and Taiyuan, Shanxi. Since then, they have developed into the most famous Wang family of Langye and Taiyuan, the biggest group in the surname of Wang. The Ji clan of Wang existed around 2600 years. In China, 90% of the Wang family that have their family tree originated from the Ji clan of Wang.

Gui house

in Qi (Shandong), Tian An(田安) descendant get surname Wang(王) [10]

Chinese Muslims

Unlike the vast majority of Hui people who are of foreign Arab, Persian, and other ancestry through their male line, Hui in Gansu with the surname "Wang" 汪, are descended from Han Chinese who converted to Islam and married Muslim Hui or Dongxiang people, switching their ethnicity and joining the Hui and Dongxiang ethnic groups, both of which are Muslim.

A town called Tangwangchuan (唐汪川) in Gansu had a multi ethnic populace, the Tang 唐 and Wang 汪 families being the two major families. The Tang and Wang families were originally of non Muslim Han Chinese extraction, but by the 1900s some branches of the families became Muslim by "intermarriage or conversion" while other branches of the families remained non Muslim.[11]

Wang in other countries and ethnic groups

Hmong

The Hmong version of Wang is Vang, or in RPA Vaj or Vaaj. It has the same etymology as the Chinese surname, and is fairly common among the Hmong. The Vang constitute one of the largest of the eighteen clans of the Hmong.

Korean

Wang (surname)
Hangul 왕
Revised Romanization Wang
McCune–Reischauer Wang

Wang is a Korean family name 왕 but fairly rare in Korea. According to the South Korean census of 2000, in that year 23,447 people bearing the Wang surname were living in the country. [1]

The surname Wang is said to have originated from the Silla kingdom, which was one of the kingdom's noble family which originally had the surname Jak (작). However when Wang Geon, the founder of the Goryeo kingdom, met a Buddhist monk at an early age with his father, the Buddhist monk foresaw that he would one day become king and therefore his father changed their last name into Wang (meaning King) which later did indeed became a reality with Wang Geon establishing the kingdom of Goryeo.

Wang was the Goryeo royal family name for the duration of the kingdom, however currently Wang is a fairly uncommon surname. It is said that when Goryeo fell, people called Wang changed their surname to avoid severe persecution from the succeeding Joseon Dynasty. The Kaesong Wang lineage traces its ancestry to the Goryeo rulers.

Japanese

Ō (often romanized as "Oh" or "O") is a rare Japanese family name which is the equivalent of Wang. Ō is the way Japanese pronounce the character 王. Most Japanese with this family name are of Chinese descent. Sadaharu Oh is a famous baseball player and manager in Japan.

Thailand

Teochew dialect (潮州话) is mostly used by the oversea Chinese in Thailand. The surname Wang is pronounced like Heng

Indonesian

The surname Wang in Indonesia is often pronounced as Heng or Bong for people of Hokkien descent, and more commonly as Ong by Chinese Peranakan.

Vietnamese

The name Wang in the Vietnamese language is Vương or Uông.

Prominent personages

Note: people with the family name “Ō” are listed in the “Ō” article.

China

Malaysia

Singapore

Indonesia

Taiwan

Korean

Vietnamese

Fictional people

Notes and citations

  1. ^ 1990 Census Name Files
  2. ^ http://csymbol.com/name/chinese_name.html
  3. ^ 公安部统计分析显示：王姓成为我国第一大姓
  4. ^ http://english.people.com.cn/200706/19/eng20070619_385661.html
  5. ^ Origin of the surname Wang, Wong, Ong, Heng
  6. ^ greatchinese.com - Hundred Family's Surnames: Wang entry (under paragraph 3 says Wang is the descendants of Prince Bi Gan)
  7. ^ Tracing of the Ancestry: under paragraph 1
  8. ^ Wang Ziqiao
  9. ^ Chinese surname history: Wang, under paragraph 2
  10. ^ http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%8E%8B%E5%A7%93
  11. ^ Gail Hershatter (1996). Gail Hershatter. ed. Remapping China: fissures in historical terrain (illustrated ed.). Stanford University Press. p. 102. ISBN 0804725098. http://books.google.com/books?id=AvDOudr5M6MC&pg=PA102&dq=We+should+also+note+the+existence+of+smaller,+but+equally+mixed,+communities+such+as+Tangwangchuan#v=onepage&q=We%20should%20also%20note%20the%20existence%20of%20smaller%2C%20but%20equally%20mixed%2C%20communities%20such%20as%20Tangwangchuan&f=false. Retrieved 17th of July, 2011. 

See also

References

  • Yuan (袁), Yida (義達) (2002). Chinese Surnames, Group Heredity and Spread of Population (中国姓氏·群体遗传和人口分布). Huadong Training College Publishing Group (華東師範大學出版社). ISBN 7-5617-2769-0/C.081. 
  • Zhang (臧), Lihe (勵和) ( (1998). The Great Dictionary of Chinese Names (中國人名大辭典), updated by Xu Shitian (許師慎). The Commercial Press (商務印書館). ISBN 7-100-02555-9. 

External links