18 common Hmong surnames Cha - Zhang Cheng - Ching Chu - Zhu Fang - Fan Hang - Han Her - He Khang - Kang Khue - Ge Kong - Gong Lee - Li Lor - Lau Moua - Mao Pha - Pan Thao - Tao Vang - Wang Vue - Wu Xiong - Xiong Yang - Yang
Sadly, most people had to hide their surnames to stay safe, especially in big cities. That's why the Indonesian romanizarions are so weird & changed so much. This applied to other peoples, but the Chinese were hit the hardest.
In high school, I had two Chinese friends that were siblings, but the romanization of their surnames were different. One had Zhang and the other Chang. A lot of our classmates were confused when we found out they were siblings. They said that the reason behind it was because their family moved between their births. If I remember correctly, the younger sibling had the surname Chang and we were told he was born in Hong Kong.
As a singaporeon myself The tan family is humongous. In a class of 42 students (my class) at least 10 were tans 42 including non chinese students (about 15)
+Ryo Fukuda 福田亮 Your name in Vietnamese is Tran Truong Giang (Trần Trương Giang), because "Song" is originally Vietnamese word, but when you stranlate a name that contains Chinese Affected pronunciation, It is Giang. Anyway it is a nice name :)
Well that is so true! Even here in Indonesia, we chinese indonesian have those surnames. I'm Yang, my mom is Chen, most of my friends are either Wang, Lee, Liu, Zhao, and Hwang, well mostly Chen. but most of us have our chinese surname in Hokkien romanization.
In fact nearly all Korean surnames are found in Hans Chinese people. Would you believe that the surname Kim (meaning gold in Chinese) also exists among Chinese people? And the structure of Korean names is similar to traditional Chinese in having 3 words/characters. These Korean names also exist among Chinese people: An, Cho, Choi, Chung, Hong, Hwang, Jang, Jee, Jeon, Jeong, Kim, Lee, Moon, Roo, Shin, Song, Youn, although the pronunciation will be different.
My grandmother was from Pampanga in the Philippines and her maiden name was “Tiongco” which is the Spanish transliteration of “Zhang co” Thanks for the history lesson!
Good job guys for including a Vietnamese version. I'm Chinese but I have many Vietnamese friends, some of them can speak Cantonese, it is interesting to know that some of the common VN names are derived from Chinese.
Awesome! I've been interested in this since I've started learning Chinese and met Hongkongers and I went on exchange to Singapore. The romanization really keeps the heritage even when (especially in Singapore) the people already only speak Mandarin or English. Then again it seems like a lot of people don't know that Vietnamese names are based on Chinese characters as I have experienced that my Vietnamese mate took a Chinese name on my Chinese class without knowing his name is translatable.
Cool, i'm the first surname 王(Ong) my Dad is Hokkien origin. Majority of M'sians/S'poreans are with surname Ong(Hokkien) or Wong (Cantonese). I've explained countless times to foreigners why my surname is Ong instead of Wang/Wong (王). A famous S'porean singer is called Olivia Ong.
Another interesting note: The Hokkien incarnation of the Zhang/Chang/Cheung surname--Tiu--should also be added to fully appreciate the number of people bearing that last name. :)
Fun fact: My name was inspired from Sky Wu (伍思凯）a famous Taiwanese singer and was declared the best male Chinese singer on 2004(which is the year I was born) but changed the 伍 to 陈。 Another fun fact: I didn't know my name was inspired by him until this year. My nickname Sky was given by myself when I was 13 years old. So, I'm called SkyTan. What a bloody coincidence.
An American-born 趙 (Zhao) here. It's an uncomfortable surname to have growing up in America, but 3000+ plus years of history and #1 entry in the 百家姓 "encyclopedia" is good enough for me.
I'm a Wesley, its Anglo-Saxon for "west meadow/field". The last art of the name 'ley' is the same as the Scottish surname "Lee" both meaning meadow or field
חֵן (meaning "grace") is common as a surname in Israel because it comes fr. a Semitic root (חָנַן). The fact that 陳 becomes חֵן when put in Hebrew characters turns out as just a coincidence. And thank you for the video!
My mum is a Lee & me, taking my dad's name, I am a Yap (evidently) which translates into 'leaf'. It's uncommon but I know of other people with that surname in Malaysia (where my parents are from). Or maybe they're family on my dad's side. I haven't met or know the names of any family on my dad's side.
I teach a student whose family is Chinese background (but they left China about 3 generations ago) and whose surname in Australia is "Shing". I asked his parents what his name in characters was, and they said he doesn't have a "real" one. His family's surname is actually "刘", but for some reason they changed their surname to 星 instead, which was actually originally the father's GIVEN name!! And they spell it with an Sh instead of pinyin X because they said it'd confuse people.
You'd be surpised how many peoples family names have been lost in translation. A guy I worked with s'father, when giving his details for citizenship and not being able to write english, spoke it all to an englishman. So Ng became Ung. For most western born chinese with Ung so the character adapted to suit I guess? 😅
Any other Liaos here? 廖 It's Liu in Cantonese. My surname is ranked 67th in China, 18th in Taiwan. Any idea how it ranks among the Chinese/Taiwanese in the US? Growing up, I never heard of any Liaos except for me and my relatives. But over the years, it seemed more Liaos have moved to the US. If you come across a Liao, chances are they have Taiwan roots. But I've met some Liaos from the Mainland, too.
At one time not too long ago, this was the most common Chinese surnames: 1) Chin/Chan/Chen 6) Ow/Au 2) Lee/Li/Ly 7) Jew 3) Cheung 8) Woo/Wu 4) Wong 9) Ma 5) Ho 10) Mark It's been changed the last few years. Lim/Lam/Lin wasn't even in the top 50 and is now in first position.
I'm a Yang ;3 That's interesting info. Pretty crazy how a lot of Asians from different ethnicities have same last names even if pronounced/written differently..
@@adeho789 People that share a surname don't necessarily have the same biological relation, so I'm unclear as to what you mean by "I'm biologically a Ying." Ying (嬴 and 應) are quite rare Chinese surnames, and definitely less common than the surname Yang. From what I've read, the surname Li derives from the surname Ying, but I'm not too sure about that.
@@particleonazock2246 My biological father's last name is Ying. I've heard it's rare. But I see several men online with his exact name. And thank you for your reply. :)
It is mainly due to the limited number of Chinese characters. Most Chinese surnames are single-character. Hmong, Korean and Vietnamese surnames are all derived from Chinese characters. The distribution of Chinese surnames is relatively uniform, as cultural tradition passed surnames from generation to generation. China's rapid population growth allowed an increase in the proportion of people bearing the same surname. You can find out more about this under surname research on Zhihu.
Korean legend tells me that my surname 박(朴) [commonly spelled Park, but pronounced "bak"; pronounced "piao" in Mandarin] came about when the first king of Shilla (most likely spelled Silla in your history textbook), was born. His story: "When the people (of the 6 villages) gathered to pray for a king, a white horse emerged from a bolt of lightning, bowing to a shining egg. After the horse flew back to heaven, the egg opened and the boy Park Hyeokgeose emerged. When he grew up, he united six warring states. [His surname supposedly came from people describing the sound that the egg made when Hyeokgeose came out of his shell.]" So yeah... A more credible theory to the origin of my last name is from the Korean adjective stem 밝- (balk-, bark-), which means "bright". If anyone knows how my name is pronounced in different languages, I'd love to know!
Lim is very famous in indonesia. my mother and my gf are Lim (秝). my surename is Lian (連), and from wikipedia: Chinese Lian (連) family originated from Gaoxin (高辛) family, Lianao (連敖) of Chu (state), and Jiang (姜) family of Qi (state). also, founded from Various Public Office of Zhou Dynasty period and Public Office of Han Dynasty period. later, another Lian (連) family founded from Xiongnu people, Xianbei people, Manchu people.
Well not really. English pronounce it the way you’ve probably have been, with a Zang and silent h. So the rest of the 7 also said like, shut up Zzang (I’m using this example because they say shut up [insert last name] a lot) the way you do. But his grandma would pronounce it with a J-like sound (more or less).
no, loo is 吕(simplified Chinese which used by China mainland)/呂(traditional Chinese which used by Taiwan and Hong Kong), and that sound 'Loo' is pronounced in Taiwanese or Ban Lam Dialect(a dialect in Fujian province of China). In Mandarin, 吕 will be pronounced as lv, sound similar to li
I'm Teochew from VN. Cantonese and Vietnamese to me are almost the same and I can understand them both. My mother and father can speak more Chinese dialects (Mandarin, Cantonese, Teochew, Fukien, Hokkien, Vietnamese and a little bit of Japanese.) than my siblings and me. Older generations know much more than us. As our generation live in US, our customs and languages have begun to decrease. Now my nephew can only speak English and understand very little of Vietnamese.
You guys should make a video describing the cognate (shared) words between Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese--how would you describe the origin of each language and how they relate. Can most East Asian languages be written using traditional Chinese characters?
Chen in Hebrew is not pronounced like "chen", but more like "Hen". No one wants ti be called a heb though and so some present themselves as "Chen" when they meet native English speakers. Moreover, this is a relatively new last name, only from the last few generations. In the 50s the young state of Israel accepted into it many refugees from Arab countries (some forget nowadays how jews were treated there, maybe because the of the holocaust, idk) and of course holocaust survivors. In 1949, more than a million refugees arrived at Israel (twice the total number of Jews in Israel in 1948). Those who lived in Israel had to support the newcomers. To deal with the variety of cultures in a short amount of time, the government encouraged a "melting pot" policy. Unfortunately, it ended up more like a "become like X" policy. Anyways many felt pressured to switch their last name into a Hebrew word - in honor of returning to the ancient homeland. (It's a tiny part of an overall dillemma - how to rebuild a national unity from ancient times when no one remembers what it was like the last time jews had a national home in Israel?) Anyways, those names are very new. חן is popular because it has a very positive meaning - something between grace, beauty and kindness. Plus it's an old word, and it is in the bible. The "Chen" you refer to would be written in Hebrew as צ'ן.
My surname 岳 (Mandarin: Yue, Shanghainese/Contonese: Ngok) is really rare! i'd never met anyone who has the same surname, except my relatives. It means "big mountain", and it is, according to a legend, from a minister of Huangdi (黃帝,aka the Yellow Emperor) who was in charge of administering all the tribes with the title 四岳(four mountains). The only famous historical personage of my surname is general Yue Fei (岳飛), a famous national hero.
Great video! I think you should make a video on all surnames in the 百家姓! It would take too long to explain every surname's origin, but I think an interesting video can still be made on the subject.
@Nelson Jiang If you are on a phone, you either get the pinyin or jyutping keyboard. You can also get a keyboard where you right the character with your finger. If you are on a computer or laptop you need to get the pinyin or jyutping keyboard.
I'm curious about the last surname of Zhu, since that's also fairly common (not too common, but enough to pop up every so often). May you explain a bit about the history of that name?
yes its almost the same but for certain word its totally different and may lead to misunderstanding, which in the most popular comparison, in hokkien you say" Is there anybody at your home", in teochew means "Is there anyone died in ur home" Secondly, hokkien, taiwanese, teochew, hainanese is all consider in the same categeory, 闽南语，where 闽南 is the southern part of hokkien province. The variations is caused by the local culture and history.
I think it's most likely due to dialect, where in Malaysia there is the stronger tendency for the Chinese here to romanize the surnames according to how they are pronounced in their own dialects, and Ting is how 陈 is pronounced in the Fuzhou dialect. Strangely, while my paternal grandfather's surname was romanized as Ting, his brother's surname was romanized as Tan; this is most likely due to clerical error as they both entered Malaysia (Malaya at the time) via Singapore.
My surname is 柯(mandarin: Ke; cantonese: Oh) and according to my grandparents our ancestors were woodcutters, which explains the writing of 柯. Now how about a list of most unpopular chinese last names :D
There is no "formal" romanization for last name -- it depends on the immigration clerk who processed the case or the nurse registering the birth and their experience with the Chinese people. My mom and her brothers and sister all have different versions of the same last name.
Do you know what homonyms are? It's a homonym. They got tons of homonyms in Japan. "Ryū" (りゅう) is On'yomi, not a native Japanese word. On'yomi is the pronunciation derived from the original pronunciations of Chinese characters in China. 龍 (or "竜" in shinjitai) in kun'yomi (native Japanese pronunciation) is pronounced "tatsu" (たつ). Not all kanji have a kun'yomi pronunciation, but all kanji have an on'yomi pronunciation. Not all kun'yomi words can be replaced with kanji, either.
Can you guys give me the chinese characters of my chinese name pls? I'm half chinese (Hokkien) but I don't know any.. LOL! It's embarrassing. My chinese name is Teh Siew Yuet.. My mom said my chinese name 'Siew Yuet' means Little Moon.. So yeah,I'd reaally appreciate it if you guys can help me out here.. ^^
I would like to point out that you mispronounced the Hebrew surname. The "ch" sound is a pharyngeal fricative, which sounds a slightly little bit like a German/French gutteral R. The reason to choose "ch" to transliterate the sound is just because English does not have a corresponding letter for the sound as it does not even have that sound. However, it sounds a bit like the Polish/Czech "ch" (voiceless velar fricative). I think that is the reason to use "ch".
What about the last name Lim? I looked it up and I found out it is the Hokkien Chinese form of LIN which means "林 "forest" or 琳 "fine jade, gem". (source behindthename website) Is this true?
ah this is interesting~ my mom told me a while ago that european last names have different meanings to them too, like her maiden name is waugh and that derives from the scottish and english being seperated by a wall and the people who lived near there being called the wall people. names starting with mc mean son of, so a name like mcdonald means son of donald. its so cool that we can learn about our ancestors with just a name
Mine is 林 (Lin(Mandarin), Lam(Cantonese)) which is the 19th in China (but definitely top 10 among the overseas Chinese) it means forest. It was given to the descendants of Bi Gan, the uncle to the last king of Shang. Bi Gan was executed by having his heart plucked out after advising the king to mend his ways, and his pregnant wife ran to the forest and delivered her child by holding on two trees. The Shang dynasty was shortly overthrown and the family and given the surname 林 by the Zhou dynasty
It's an interesting topic. As an overseas chinese, I can trace my family's migration to the country of my birth to my grandfather flight from china (actually boat ride) back in the 1920s during the turmoil during the early part of the formation of the republic of China. Perhaps the chinese diaspora would be an interesting topic to talk about in OtGW, since there are is a sizable community of Chinese descent in many nations
"Nguyễn is the Vietnamese transliteration of the Chinese surname (阮), which is often transliterated as Ruan in Mandarin, Yuen in Cantonese, or Gnieuh in Wu Chinese."
My last name is Anderson. My Chinese instructor gave me the surname of AN, which means peace, tranquility, security, safety. I named our adopted Korean son "Daren", which means "big person" (Da Ren) in Chinese. The Chinese phrase for "common folk" or "the masses" is "Lao Bai Xing", which literally means "Old 100 surnames". Quite appropriate (hen heshi), I think.
all my relatives have "different" surnames in written english. relatives in mainland china is "lu", cousins in hk are "lo" and mine is "lou" from macau :D
曾. "Zeng". My family line is actually quite famous, with scientists, historians, leaders, etc. I found out that there are history courses in China's schools that teaches about my family line, weird.
18 common Hmong surnames
Cha - Zhang
Cheng - Ching
Chu - Zhu
Fang - Fan
Hang - Han
Her - He
Khang - Kang
Khue - Ge
Kong - Gong
Lee - Li
Lor - Lau
Moua - Mao
Pha - Pan
Thao - Tao
Vang - Wang
Vue - Wu
Xiong - Xiong
Yang - Yang
thanks
I always thought Cha was a Korean surname, or a Cantonese form of the uncommon Chinese surname, Zha.
Mom is a Li, dad was a Liew. I'm so mainstream it hurts.
Try being an aisin-gioro or a random Mongol without a surname....
my grandparents both had wang last names ;-;
My dad is a Liy but I guess that’s a typo, right?
Yeah I've heard of the discrimination against Chinese in Indonesia. It's some scary stuff.
Sadly, most people had to hide their surnames to stay safe, especially in big cities. That's why the Indonesian romanizarions are so weird & changed so much. This applied to other peoples, but the Chinese were hit the hardest.
And that's me!
@@tonyau3360 is it still happening today?
@@PinoyAbnoy People tend to follow their parents. If their parents hid it, they hide it. If their parents showed it, they also show.
@@tonyau3360 are your parents pure chinese living in indonesia?
Chinese last names so much more fun than "Smith"
Yep hehe
Max Li #LiFam
But not half as much fun as Cholmondeley-Smythe!
Chinese did have some surname like smith....it is ouyang欧阳 engineer who's give a small land and became the minor lord during 8bc....
Mainly because you can actually study the geographical distribution of the surnames at the regional and national level. It is very exciting.
In high school, I had two Chinese friends that were siblings, but the romanization of their surnames were different. One had Zhang and the other Chang. A lot of our classmates were confused when we found out they were siblings. They said that the reason behind it was because their family moved between their births. If I remember correctly, the younger sibling had the surname Chang and we were told he was born in Hong Kong.
As a singaporeon myself
The tan family is humongous.
In a class of 42 students (my class) at least 10 were tans
42 including non chinese students (about 15)
ikr
My name is so hard to find. If I happen to find someone with the same surname as me. We are most likely related. Lol.
I'm a Chen!
Vietnamese: Trần Thanh Huy
Chinese: 陳清輝 Chen Qing Hui
Nice name!
Thanks!
***** thanks! :) I don't really know what you mean with poetic ring, but yeah.
+Thanh Huy Tran I'm a Chen too!!
Vietnamese: Tran Truongsong
Chinese: 陳長江
+Ryo Fukuda 福田亮 Your name in Vietnamese is Tran Truong Giang (Trần Trương Giang), because "Song" is originally Vietnamese word, but when you stranlate a name that contains Chinese Affected pronunciation, It is Giang. Anyway it is a nice name :)
Well that is so true! Even here in Indonesia, we chinese indonesian have those surnames. I'm Yang, my mom is Chen, most of my friends are either Wang, Lee, Liu, Zhao, and Hwang, well mostly Chen. but most of us have our chinese surname in Hokkien romanization.
the moment when your Chinese surname and your friends last name is the ones said in the video....
I'm Yap, or Yip in cantonese..meaning Leaf.
I came from the Leaf village from Konoha and Naruto's my ancestor
nice to meat you alls
Lols ahahaha
S.K Yap lol hahahaha ...so 叶 in simplified Chinese and 葉 in traditional.
+S.K Yap It's "Ye" in Mandarin.
Theo Buniel
Yeah
"Yap" is hakka and hokkien. I'm hokkien. but my main jutsu is canton :D
+S.K Yap Dude that spider looked hella real :O I got stunned for a second lol
Wu -> Oh in korean so it would be Oh Kris and Oh Sehun XD
+Korily L. Grondin I realized that too lol
+Korily L. Grondin omg
OMG
oh yeah :)
exo-ls unite!!
unfortunately, my surname 'wu' is 胡
They have Huang in Korea too (Hwang). Count as one of the common last names.
In fact nearly all Korean surnames are found in Hans Chinese people. Would you believe that the surname Kim (meaning gold in Chinese) also exists among Chinese people?
And the structure of Korean names is similar to traditional Chinese in having 3 words/characters.
These Korean names also exist among Chinese people: An, Cho, Choi, Chung, Hong, Hwang, Jang, Jee, Jeon, Jeong, Kim, Lee, Moon, Roo, Shin, Song, Youn, although the pronunciation will be different.
@@michaelwong4303Yes, for example Li/Lee is pronounced as Yi in Korean
My grandmother was from Pampanga in the Philippines and her maiden name was “Tiongco” which is the Spanish transliteration of “Zhang co” Thanks for the history lesson!
Oh this is very interesting! :D Thanks for adding the other language versions (like Taiwan, Korean, Hmong, etc.) of the Chinese names too!
OMG the moment you realise your friends from different ethnics actually have the same surname as you! Hahaha
where is Lin/Lim/Lam...thought it is quite common lol..
I'm a Lam xD
I'm a Lam xD
+Sammy yah same
I am Lin 林. In Teochew is Lim, but in Indonesia the spelling is Liem. :)
+Simon Liem that I how lam is spelt in chinese
So I guess wu explains exo kris and in korean (oh) sehun lol
OMG ME TOO...
Good job guys for including a Vietnamese version. I'm Chinese but I have many Vietnamese friends, some of them can speak Cantonese, it is interesting to know that some of the common VN names are derived from Chinese.
my Chinese surname is 蔡 (Cài)
Cantonese: Choi
Korean: Chae
Japanese: Sai
in Indonesia (my country): Tjoa
I love your profile pic ;)
:D
That should be Chua in Singapore
That’s my last name
My name is Xiaolin cai
English name Kelly Cai
蔡晓霖
In Vietnamese, yours would be “Thái” or “Sái” when written in Romantic alphabet 😜
Awesome! I've been interested in this since I've started learning Chinese and met Hongkongers and I went on exchange to Singapore. The romanization really keeps the heritage even when (especially in Singapore) the people already only speak Mandarin or English. Then again it seems like a lot of people don't know that Vietnamese names are based on Chinese characters as I have experienced that my Vietnamese mate took a Chinese name on my Chinese class without knowing his name is translatable.
Chen… Chen.. CHENCHENCHENCHENCHEN :DDD
XD
Celiphany it's mean hot
No Chin
I love your videos. Especially mentioning overseas Chinese (Indonesia etc.) Love it! Keep it up!
Cool, i'm the first surname 王(Ong) my Dad is Hokkien origin. Majority of M'sians/S'poreans are with surname Ong(Hokkien) or Wong (Cantonese). I've explained countless times to foreigners why my surname is Ong instead of Wang/Wong (王). A famous S'porean singer is called Olivia Ong.
This is so interesting and informative, thanks for uploading this! :)
Another interesting note: The Hokkien incarnation of the Zhang/Chang/Cheung surname--Tiu--should also be added to fully appreciate the number of people bearing that last name. :)
李 is another way to say plum. 梨 is pear. It's the same sound but different characters.
I guess the joke " you have more chins than a Chinese phone book" doesn't apply
lol jin is the 64th most common surname.
Fun fact: My name was inspired from Sky Wu (伍思凯）a famous Taiwanese singer and was declared the best male Chinese singer on 2004(which is the year I was born) but changed the 伍 to 陈。
Another fun fact: I didn't know my name was inspired by him until this year. My nickname Sky was given by myself when I was 13 years old. So, I'm called SkyTan. What a bloody coincidence.
An American-born 趙 (Zhao) here. It's an uncomfortable surname to have growing up in America, but 3000+ plus years of history and #1 entry in the 百家姓 "encyclopedia" is good enough for me.
I'm a Canadian born Zhao written Chu here, but remember uncles called Joe and Jew who I was told were the same surname as us.
@@mavisgarland8609 As a Jew (the ethnic group and race), I find it funny that there are people with a last name like that.
@@jonahs92 All due to the immigration officers writing down what they think they heard.
I'm a Wesley, its Anglo-Saxon for "west meadow/field". The last art of the name 'ley' is the same as the Scottish surname "Lee" both meaning meadow or field
חֵן (meaning "grace") is common as a surname in Israel because it comes fr. a Semitic root (חָנַן). The fact that 陳 becomes חֵן when put in Hebrew characters turns out as just a coincidence. And thank you for the video!
0:56 Lý*
3:48 Can also be read as Chu
My mum is a Lee & me, taking my dad's name, I am a Yap (evidently) which translates into 'leaf'. It's uncommon but I know of other people with that surname in Malaysia (where my parents are from). Or maybe they're family on my dad's side. I haven't met or know the names of any family on my dad's side.
I teach a student whose family is Chinese background (but they left China about 3 generations ago) and whose surname in Australia is "Shing". I asked his parents what his name in characters was, and they said he doesn't have a "real" one. His family's surname is actually "刘", but for some reason they changed their surname to 星 instead, which was actually originally the father's GIVEN name!! And they spell it with an Sh instead of pinyin X because they said it'd confuse people.
You'd be surpised how many peoples family names have been lost in translation. A guy I worked with s'father, when giving his details for citizenship and not being able to write english, spoke it all to an englishman. So Ng became Ung. For most western born chinese with Ung so the character adapted to suit I guess? 😅
Any other Liaos here? 廖 It's Liu in Cantonese. My surname is ranked 67th in China, 18th in Taiwan. Any idea how it ranks among the Chinese/Taiwanese in the US? Growing up, I never heard of any Liaos except for me and my relatives. But over the years, it seemed more Liaos have moved to the US. If you come across a Liao, chances are they have Taiwan roots. But I've met some Liaos from the Mainland, too.
At one time not too long ago, this was the most common Chinese surnames:
1) Chin/Chan/Chen 6) Ow/Au
2) Lee/Li/Ly 7) Jew
3) Cheung 8) Woo/Wu
4) Wong 9) Ma
5) Ho 10) Mark
It's been changed the last few years. Lim/Lam/Lin wasn't even in the top 50 and is now in first position.
I'm a Yang ;3 That's interesting info. Pretty crazy how a lot of Asians from different ethnicities have same last names even if pronounced/written differently..
Norixciii Do you know if Yang and Ying are closely related? I'm biologically a Ying, but have no information on my family/name.
@@adeho789 People that share a surname don't necessarily have the same biological relation, so I'm unclear as to what you mean by "I'm biologically a Ying." Ying (嬴 and 應) are quite rare Chinese surnames, and definitely less common than the surname Yang. From what I've read, the surname Li derives from the surname Ying, but I'm not too sure about that.
@@particleonazock2246 My biological father's last name is Ying. I've heard it's rare. But I see several men online with his exact name. And thank you for your reply. :)
It is mainly due to the limited number of Chinese characters. Most Chinese surnames are single-character. Hmong, Korean and Vietnamese surnames are all derived from Chinese characters. The distribution of Chinese surnames is relatively uniform, as cultural tradition passed surnames from generation to generation. China's rapid population growth allowed an increase in the proportion of people bearing the same surname. You can find out more about this under surname research on Zhihu.
Thanks for letting us know, I don't know Hebrew so I didn't want to attempt to say it :P
Korean legend tells me that my surname 박(朴) [commonly spelled Park, but pronounced "bak"; pronounced "piao" in Mandarin] came about when the first king of Shilla (most likely spelled Silla in your history textbook), was born. His story:
"When the people (of the 6 villages) gathered to pray for a king, a white horse emerged from a bolt of lightning, bowing to a shining egg. After the horse flew back to heaven, the egg opened and the boy Park Hyeokgeose emerged. When he grew up, he united six warring states. [His surname supposedly came from people describing the sound that the egg made when Hyeokgeose came out of his shell.]" So yeah...
A more credible theory to the origin of my last name is from the Korean adjective stem 밝- (balk-, bark-), which means "bright".
If anyone knows how my name is pronounced in different languages, I'd love to know!
one of my chinese friend pronounce 朴 as "Pu"
+Chosen Azs Austria ah yes, I learned the other day that "pu" is also used frequently.
+Chosen Azs Austria It is Piao in Mainland China, and Pu in Taiwan
Hian-tong Lim thank you for the info... yes my friend is from Taiwan . Hehe
Nice. That one is common in Korea.
Lim is very famous in indonesia. my mother and my gf are Lim (秝).
my surename is Lian (連), and from wikipedia: Chinese Lian (連) family originated from Gaoxin (高辛) family, Lianao (連敖) of Chu (state), and Jiang (姜) family of Qi (state). also, founded from Various Public Office of Zhou Dynasty period and Public Office of Han Dynasty period. later, another Lian (連) family founded from Xiongnu people, Xianbei people, Manchu people.
I'm a Li
Chinese name: 李永漢 Li Yong Han
Any other Li here?
我的名字是李小龍,跟BRUCE LEE 一樣. 哈哈哈, 你是印尼的華人嗎?
WE ARE BROTHERS
Alan Saputra 對
Johann Hartono 在雅加達嗎？
Alan Saputra 不是. 我住在Tangerang. 但是我是Magelang人. 你呢？
Thanks for including the Teochew surnames! :D
so i've been Frank Zhang's name wrong for a long time..... oops?
Well not really. English pronounce it the way you’ve probably have been, with a Zang and silent h. So the rest of the 7 also said like, shut up Zzang (I’m using this example because they say shut up [insert last name] a lot) the way you do. But his grandma would pronounce it with a J-like sound (more or less).
no, loo is 吕(simplified Chinese which used by China mainland)/呂(traditional Chinese which used by Taiwan and Hong Kong), and that sound 'Loo' is pronounced in Taiwanese or Ban Lam Dialect(a dialect in Fujian province of China). In Mandarin, 吕 will be pronounced as lv, sound similar to li
HIGH FIVE!! for Yellow!!
You stay awesome my sista from another motha
I'm Teochew from VN. Cantonese and Vietnamese to me are almost the same and I can understand them both. My mother and father can speak more Chinese dialects (Mandarin, Cantonese, Teochew, Fukien, Hokkien, Vietnamese and a little bit of Japanese.) than my siblings and me. Older generations know much more than us. As our generation live in US, our customs and languages have begun to decrease. Now my nephew can only speak English and understand very little of Vietnamese.
張/张： Zhang (Mainland), Cheung (Hong Kong), Chang (Taiwan)
You guys should make a video describing the cognate (shared) words between Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese--how would you describe the origin of each language and how they relate. Can most East Asian languages be written using traditional Chinese characters?
Chen in Hebrew is not pronounced like "chen", but more like "Hen". No one wants ti be called a heb though and so some present themselves as "Chen" when they meet native English speakers.
Moreover, this is a relatively new last name, only from the last few generations.
In the 50s the young state of Israel accepted into it many refugees from Arab countries (some forget nowadays how jews were treated there, maybe because the of the holocaust, idk) and of course holocaust survivors. In 1949, more than a million refugees arrived at Israel (twice the total number of Jews in Israel in 1948). Those who lived in Israel had to support the newcomers. To deal with the variety of cultures in a short amount of time, the government encouraged a "melting pot" policy. Unfortunately, it ended up more like a "become like X" policy. Anyways many felt pressured to switch their last name into a Hebrew word - in honor of returning to the ancient homeland. (It's a tiny part of an overall dillemma - how to rebuild a national unity from ancient times when no one remembers what it was like the last time jews had a national home in Israel?)
Anyways, those names are very new. חן is popular because it has a very positive meaning - something between grace, beauty and kindness. Plus it's an old word, and it is in the bible.
The "Chen" you refer to would be written in Hebrew as צ'ן.
נכון מאוד!
you guys should do one for compound Chinese names, they're really rare and get angliced in weird ways like sometimes Ouyang=O'young
My name is Vương, which is Wong/Wang! Its a rare Vietnamese surnames tho...
Phuong Nhi Angel Wong means people
Phuong Nhi Angel its high for Malay
Wan is close to King blood line another surname is tuan
Does Vietnamese using tuan as surname ?
Wow you guys even added hmong! Im surprised haha, awesome :3
Why no Xu?!
Cheryl Xu that's my mum's last name
I know two xu's
Aka the surname that no one can correctly pronounce. XD
Xu is the 11th most common surname, concentrated in south-east China.
I've been a great fans! Thank you for mentioning my country Indonesia =)
My surname 岳 (Mandarin: Yue, Shanghainese/Contonese: Ngok) is really rare! i'd never met anyone who has the same surname, except my relatives. It means "big mountain", and it is, according to a legend, from a minister of Huangdi (黃帝,aka the Yellow Emperor) who was in charge of administering all the tribes with the title 四岳(four mountains). The only famous historical personage of my surname is general Yue Fei (岳飛), a famous national hero.
there is a famous comedian called 岳云鹏
Cool! I love seeing the linguistic connections not only across the various Chinese languages, but the whole of East and Southeast Asia.
有冇人姓梁呀？
Great video! I think you should make a video on all surnames in the 百家姓! It would take too long to explain every surname's origin, but I think an interesting video can still be made on the subject.
My surname isn't in the list Yay!
My surname is 何
how do I type characters on toutube
Neither is mine, pronounced different in Mandarin. When I was on holiday in HK I came across list of all these Surname for customized Teddie.
Cantonese Wu, Mandarin is Hu it means beardy
@Nelson Jiang If you are on a phone, you either get the pinyin or jyutping keyboard. You can also get a keyboard where you right the character with your finger. If you are on a computer or laptop you need to get the pinyin or jyutping keyboard.
I'm curious about the last surname of Zhu, since that's also fairly common (not too common, but enough to pop up every so often). May you explain a bit about the history of that name?
the Hokkien for 李 is Dy or Dee! hahaha
lee works too its the pronunciation. Hokkien Ls and Ds sound very similar
yes its almost the same but for certain word its totally different and may lead to misunderstanding, which in the most popular comparison, in hokkien you say" Is there anybody at your home", in teochew means "Is there anyone died in ur home"
Secondly, hokkien, taiwanese, teochew, hainanese is all consider in the same categeory, 闽南语，where 闽南 is the southern part of hokkien province. The variations is caused by the local culture and history.
Anyone else a quek/kwek?
Danial Bass 郭
I think it's most likely due to dialect, where in Malaysia there is the stronger tendency for the Chinese here to romanize the surnames according to how they are pronounced in their own dialects, and Ting is how 陈 is pronounced in the Fuzhou dialect. Strangely, while my paternal grandfather's surname was romanized as Ting, his brother's surname was romanized as Tan; this is most likely due to clerical error as they both entered Malaysia (Malaya at the time) via Singapore.
Hey! Vietnamese! Woo!
My surname is 柯(mandarin: Ke; cantonese: Oh) and according to my grandparents our ancestors were woodcutters, which explains the writing of 柯.
Now how about a list of most unpopular chinese last names :D
And I'm just mind blown when I compare the Vietnamese with the mandarin and Cantonese and realize they're the same
Actually, Sino Vietnamese is a little bit like Cantonese.
it would be easier if vietnamese don't get rid of chinese characters :)
There is no "formal" romanization for last name -- it depends on the immigration clerk who processed the case or the nurse registering the birth and their experience with the Chinese people. My mom and her brothers and sister all have different versions of the same last name.
lol my last name isn't in this video
Great video! I'd love to know about 翁 please !
Mine is:
Mandarin=Huang
Cantonese=Wong
Hokkien=Ooy
Philippine Hokkien=Uy
wheee....My surname is ZHANG!! Nice one OTGW!
Szeto/Situ anyone?
SeeTowSam Are you talking about 司徒? If you are, that's SO COOL! I've never actually met someone with a compound last name before! :D
ArchKDE Yup :) I think there are many 司徒 in Canada and America.
My little is!
Do you know what homonyms are? It's a homonym. They got tons of homonyms in Japan.
"Ryū" (りゅう) is On'yomi, not a native Japanese word. On'yomi is the pronunciation derived from the original pronunciations of Chinese characters in China. 龍 (or "竜" in shinjitai) in kun'yomi (native Japanese pronunciation) is pronounced "tatsu" (たつ).
Not all kanji have a kun'yomi pronunciation, but all kanji have an on'yomi pronunciation. Not all kun'yomi words can be replaced with kanji, either.
Some people believe Asians throw a pot down the stairs when the baby is born and adopt the sound - Ding Dong, first born of the Bang family!
+ionicafardefrica how bang yongguk came to have his name^
ionicafardefrica What did they throw to get the name ying?
Such informative. I was expecting you relate the names with popular people like Jackie Chan and Jet Li.
I'm a Wong :3
Great video!:) If possible, I would love to watch another episode of rare chinese surnames or surnames with 2 characters, etc. Cheers!
//Quietly shares video
Good Job....Thanks for sharing
Can you guys give me the chinese characters of my chinese name pls? I'm half chinese (Hokkien) but I don't know any.. LOL! It's embarrassing. My chinese name is Teh Siew Yuet.. My mom said my chinese name 'Siew Yuet' means Little Moon.. So yeah,I'd reaally appreciate it if you guys can help me out here.. ^^
It's 小月 （xiao yue) i don't know the writing of your surname though, hope it helps!
Willson Yohatha Yup! Thnx! ^^
I think "Teh" might also be alternatively romanized as "Tay", which is 郑 in the Hokkien dialect.
YummYakitori what about Siew Yuet??
Tsteless KooKie 小月 is a cute name
You are actually Liu, 廖 is a homonym of 刘, a funny thing (and foreshadowing of why you don't meet people sharing that surname) it means few. :)
I Love this video :) Hope you can make some more with this layout :D
I would like to point out that you mispronounced the Hebrew surname. The "ch" sound is a pharyngeal fricative, which sounds a slightly little bit like a German/French gutteral R. The reason to choose "ch" to transliterate the sound is just because English does not have a corresponding letter for the sound as it does not even have that sound. However, it sounds a bit like the Polish/Czech "ch" (voiceless velar fricative). I think that is the reason to use "ch".
Sooo informative. Thank you
What about the last name Lim? I looked it up and I found out it is the Hokkien Chinese form of LIN which means "林 "forest" or 琳 "fine jade, gem". (source behindthename website) Is this true?
ah this is interesting~ my mom told me a while ago that european last names have different meanings to them too, like her maiden name is waugh and that derives from the scottish and english being seperated by a wall and the people who lived near there being called the wall people. names starting with mc mean son of, so a name like mcdonald means son of donald. its so cool that we can learn about our ancestors with just a name
Mine is 林 (Lin(Mandarin), Lam(Cantonese)) which is the 19th in China (but definitely top 10 among the overseas Chinese) it means forest. It was given to the descendants of Bi Gan, the uncle to the last king of Shang. Bi Gan was executed by having his heart plucked out after advising the king to mend his ways, and his pregnant wife ran to the forest and delivered her child by holding on two trees. The Shang dynasty was shortly overthrown and the family and given the surname 林 by the Zhou dynasty
It's an interesting topic. As an overseas chinese, I can trace my family's migration to the country of my birth to my grandfather flight from china (actually boat ride) back in the 1920s during the turmoil during the early part of the formation of the republic of China.
Perhaps the chinese diaspora would be an interesting topic to talk about in OtGW, since there are is a sizable community of Chinese descent in many nations
This was really interesting. Thanks for the information. Could you do a similar video on most common first name for women and men?
Hey, Carmen, is it possible for you to list the 100 Chinese surnames out in the comment? I'm curious to see if mine is inside.
"Nguyễn is the Vietnamese transliteration of the Chinese surname (阮), which is often transliterated as Ruan in Mandarin, Yuen in Cantonese, or Gnieuh in Wu Chinese."
Thank you! that would've made more sense had he mentioned that. much appreciated
interesting and i love that you put the taiwanese/korean/vietnamese... version with it :D
My last name is Anderson. My Chinese instructor gave me the surname of AN, which means peace, tranquility, security, safety. I named our adopted Korean son "Daren", which means "big person" (Da Ren) in Chinese.
The Chinese phrase for "common folk" or "the masses" is "Lao Bai Xing", which literally means "Old 100 surnames". Quite appropriate (hen heshi), I think.
Can you make a video about Chinese geography or the different dynasties?
all my relatives have "different" surnames in written english. relatives in mainland china is "lu", cousins in hk are "lo" and mine is "lou" from macau :D
張 actually means master of bows.
曾. "Zeng". My family line is actually quite famous, with scientists, historians, leaders, etc. I found out that there are history courses in China's schools that teaches about my family line, weird.
Liu is Lauj in Hmong. In English spelling is Lo, Lau, Lao, Lor. Hmong and Mandarin pronounce very similar.