Most of the surnames in Europe and the United States originated in the Middle Ages, and very few can be traced back to the time of the ancient Greek and Roman Empires. Chinese's surname originated from the worship of wind, clouds, thunder, etc. tens of thousands of years ago. Nuwa and Fuxi were surnamed Feng, Shennong was followed by Lei, and the Yellow Emperor took Yun as his official and had the surname of Yun. Since many of the surnames in later generations are derived from the earliest ancestral surnames according to the differentiation of different regions and deeds, the surnames of wan are returned to the ancestors, it can be said that the surnames of the Chinese are from the Huaxu clan, and belong to the descendants of Yan and Huang.
Before the Qin Dynasty, surnames and surnames had different meanings. The ancient character of the surname character is composed of "person" and "birth", which means that it is born of a person and becomes a surname because of birth. The original meaning of the clan is woody, that is, the root of the plant.
Before the Shang Zhou Dynasty, surnames were used to distinguish marriages, so there were theories of the same surname, different surname, and common surname. Clans are used to distinguish between nobles and lowly, nobles have clans, and poor unworthy people have no clans. Marriages of the same surname may not be intermarried, and those with the same surname and different surnames may be married.
During the Western Han Dynasty, the distinction between surname and surname tended to disappear. Sima Qian's "Records of History" officially used surnames together without distinguishing them.
The earliest surnames in China all have the character "female", such as Ji, Jiang, Concubine, Ji, etc., which can be inferred that the surname was formed in the matrilineal clan period. There are fewer than 30 surnames that can be identified in the Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, most of which are from the side of "female". In the era of "only knowing his mother, not knowing his father", there are many stories of "saints without fathers, born of heaven". For example, Nuwa felt the brilliant rainbow light give birth to The Jaw, And Hua Xu followed in the footsteps of others and became pregnant with Fu Xi.... The ancestors of Xia, Shang, and Zhou were also the divine fetuses obtained by their ancestors who ate the Former Son of the Car (Dayu), the Swallow Egg (Qi), or the Bear Trail (Hou Ji). When we learned of the Yellow Emperor Xuanyuan clan, the Ji surname, the Yandi Lieshan clan, and the Jiang surname, in fact, we were told at the same time that the surname was based on the genealogy established earlier by the matrilineal bloodline, and the formation of the patrilineal society was marked by the increasingly grand blood lineage marked by the clan.
Compared with the earlier matriarchal lineage, the "clans" that are manifested by geographical differentiation (from giving fiefdoms and place names, national names, such as Zhao and Zheng), occupational differentiation (because they are longer than certain technical clans, such as Tao, Zhang, Wu, Bu), official position differentiation (because of official positions, such as Situ, Shi, etc.), or other secular achievements, may at first be nothing more than indicating unique regions, unique officials or skills, indicating the extraordinary deeds, experiences, prestige, and status of an individual who has obtained a clan title, and "surname" Common blood is not related. However, the descendants of these heroes of the noble and clan may find a new name for the bloodline that is different from the ancestral surname, and then take the surname of the surname, and replace the surname with the surname.
The transformation of the original bloodline lineage marked by maternal reproduction to the paternal bloodline marked by heroic achievements and the place of occurrence (Yan and HuangDi) is the first turning point in the historical cycle of the differentiation of surnames into surnames and the long-lasting formation of surnames. If the original surname always indicates a certain matrilineal or paternal more ancient bloodline, then "clan" is a historical event in which the outstanding person in this bloodline (surname) has since hedonly bleeds from one of his own recognized deeds or historical causes (avoidance, surname, etc.), so that the descendants can separately mark their bloodline within this lineage. The so-called distinction between the noble and the noble, the noble have a clan, and the poor have a name and no clan, but it is to say that most people who have a common blood relationship in history disappear silently because they are famous and unsung, and only the most outstanding of them will be given a "clan" number because of their worldly achievements or memorable historical events related to it, so that they can become a new surname by marking their unique descendants in the blood of the same surname.
The "surname" and "surname" that were distinguished by the complex efforts of the pre-Qin Dynasty were merged into one in Sima Qian's "Records of History", which is actually a natural end of the historical cycle of surnames being divided by surname, and surnames eventually becoming surnames. The evolution of Chinese surname from very few to very many generations is the result of the accumulation of blood heroes who survived the sinking in the rolling torrent of blood.
It can be said that a surname is a heroic epic. Chinese will always read in a separate surname about the distant and sacred basis for settling down, about some kind of immortal belief and memorable deeds. No matter how far away, what year and month, the descendants of Yanhuang who are elsewhere will always use their surname as a basis to return to the place where the blood of this surname is connected to recognize the ancestors.
Starting from the Yellow Emperor's "Qitu Ming Clan", maternal reproduction was no longer the basis of the Ming Clan. The origin of later surnames can be roughly classified as follows:
1． Name of place of residence, location, and feudal fate. Such as Zhao, Ximen, Zheng, Su and so on.
2． It is based on the ancient surname. Such as Ren, wind, sub and so on.
3． In the name of the ancestor or the name of the person. Such as Huangfu, Gao, Diao, Gong, Shi and so on.
4． The order of the brothers is the order of the clans. Such as Bo, Zhong, Shu, Ji and so on.
5． He was given the name of an official. Such as History, Cang, Ku, Situ, Si Kou, Tai Shi and so on.
6． With professional skills. Such as Zhang, Wu, Tu, You, Bu, Tao and so on.
7． Take the ancestral name as the clan. Such as dai, summons, etc.
8． Ancient ethnic minorities borrowed Chinese characters for clans. For example, the Tuoba clan was changed to Yuan, the Ling Lu clan was changed to Zhu, the Guan Erjia clan was changed to Guan, and the Niu Hulu clan was changed to Niu.
9． Because of the surname, to avoid the surname. For example, the Tang Dynasty King Hu gave the meritorious servants the surname of Li and the Zhu Ming Dynasty gave the surname of Zhu. Emperor Wen of Han's name was Liu Heng (劉恒), and his name was changed to Chang (常氏). The Jin Emperor had Sima Shi on his ancestors, and the shi's surname was changed to Shuai.
10． Changed his surname to avoid revenge. For example, the descendants of Duanmuzigong avoided revenge and changed their surname to Mu, and niu surname avoided revenge and changed their surname to prison.
The origin of surnames takes many forms, and there are many cases of homogeneity or homology of different surnames. With the passage of time, the popular situation of taking the single surname of both parents to form a compound surname may also become a new way of taking the surname.
There are large discrepancies in the number of ancient and modern surnames. A more generalized statistic is that the total number of ancient and modern surnames is about 10,000, many of which are surnames that no one uses today. The number of surnames that are still in use in Chinese is far more than 1,000.
The earliest monograph on surnames was written in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Shiben is also the world's first monograph on surname studies. The writings of the subsequent dynasties and dynasties on the origin of surnames can be described as sweaty and cattle.
The Tang Dynasty Official Genealogy of the Eastern Han Dynasty is the first family tree in China with a single surname. By the time of zhenguan and kaiyuan in the Tang Dynasty, the genealogy of the origin of the surname gradually became a manifestation, and an unprecedented climax of folk genealogy was formed in the Northern Song Dynasty. The "Hundred Family Names", which has a wide influence so far, is a Mongolian study book compiled by a scholar in Hangzhou in the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty. After the addition of "Hundred Family Names", a total of 414 surnames were collected, and 60 surnames were restored. Since the Fall of the Northern Song Dynasty, folk private practice has become a major spectacle in the history of ancient and modern Chinese writings. During the Years of the Republic of China, almost every surname and every ethnic group must have a genealogy, and everyone regards entering the genealogy as a lifelong event.
Many years later, if someone asks me, what was your contribution to society in those years? I would say: I have spread a lot of words full of humanity, conscience, and the light of justice, and I have refused to merge with evil.
——This sentence is said to be said by Chai Jing, and there is no way to verify it, but it is well said!
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