Returning to the roots of fallen leaves and recognizing ancestors has always been one of the components of our Chinese culture, no matter where you are, you always remember your hometown. China has a copy of "Hundred Family Names", although its content does not have a literary theory, only the record of surnames, but it carries the great role of Chinese surname culture, Chinese character understanding, etc., circulated for thousands of years, its existence reflects the Chinese's strong sense of belonging to the bloodline and clan.
However, in "Hundred Family Names", there is a surname that is most likely not a "descendant of Yan Huang", but a descendant of Iranians.
The surname "An", the 79th largest surname in China's "old" hundred surnames, is not accurately recorded in the historical records about its origin, and there are more than 10 speculations. The more famous of the An clan were the two high officials of the Five Dynasties period (907-960), who were the most divine emissaries of the time, An Guangye and An Chongrong.
The two of them were particularly powerful at that time, but they were very gentle and low-key, so they could stay in history and be liked by the common people. When Shi Jingtang agreed to be the son of the Khitans, An Zhongrong was heartbroken and shouted: "Praise China to honor Yidi, and the shame of this world is also." "Showed his strong patriotism.
So are these 2 people the descendants of Iranians? Time to go back to the Han Dynasty, the Han Wudi Emperor Liu Che (156 BC ~ 87 BC) sent Zhang Qian to the Western Regions, yes, the famous "Silk Road" in history.
It is said that When Zhang Qian sent an envoy to the Western Regions to the Rest State of West Asia (ancient Parthian Empire, present-day Iran), he opened the door to communication between China and the Rest State, and when the throne of the Rest passed to The Prince Anqing, he refused to be the king, he longed for Buddhism and wanted to become a monk, so he gave the low-hanging out throne to his uncle.
In the second year of the Eastern Han Dynasty Huan Emperor Liu Zhijianhe (148 AD), An Qing took the initiative to come to Luoyang, China, to promote Buddhism, and he fell in love with the customs and customs of our country and decided to settle here. At that time, the attendants who came with him also followed An Qing as the Chinese translation of the original country name as their surname, known in history as "An Shi", also known as "An Shi Zhenzong", with An Qing as the ancestor.
But later, many people also took the initiative to change the surname of "An", such as the infamous "An Lushan". According to the "Records of the Wei Dynasty and Guanshi", in the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534), there were those who changed the surname of Xianbei An Chi to An; during the Tang Dynasty, An Lushan changed the surname from Kang to An; during the Ming Dynasty, the Yuan people Mengge and Dase were given the surname An; and in the Tang Dynasty, the Uighurs and Xi people, the Ming and Qing Yi clan ShaJiao clan, the Village Mi clan, the Jiba clan and many other ethnic minorities such as the AnJia clan, the Ardan clan, the Deligen clan, the An Tent clan and many other other surnames were changed to the An surname.
It can be seen that a large part of the An clan is indeed a descendant of the Iranian An Qing, but with the development of the times, there are also native Chinese people who have changed their surname to An, possibly Manchus.
Ahn is a multi-ethnic, multi-lineage surname. In the Song Dynasty, the "old" hundred family names ranked 79th, and the contemporary "new" hundred names ranked more than 110, with a population of about 1.7 million, accounting for about 0.14% of the total population of the country. Among them, the five provinces of Shandong (Rizhao, Linyi, Qingdao Jiaonan and Yantai areas), Shanxi, Hebei, Anhui and Liaoning accounted for the majority of An surnames.
Therefore, whether it is the descendants of the Sabbath people or the descendants of the Manchus, in the development of Chinese history for hundreds or thousands of years, the An people have long become a part of us, and coupled with intermarriage, the An family has also become a part of the Chinese nation.
References: Wei Shu Guanshi Zhi, Zizhi Tongjian, Vol. 214