Surname & Clan Name | What's In A Chinese Name Let's Talk Lore Part 01

[@eliu868]

Wow, it's fascinating to learn about the ancient maternal societies from evidence in the characters of words and surnames! It's like a puzzle or mystery that historians can work backwards to :)

[@SeriousTrivia]

I mean logically it makes a lot of sense. In a paternal society it is hard to prove lineage (like without DNA test that we have today), so the easiest way for confirmation is those born from the same mother must all be related without a doubt regardless of who the fathers are.

[@eliu868]

@@SeriousTrivia Makes sense!

[@reijikusaka]

Speaking of style name, I often referring historical figures by their style names or sometimes the clan names as my fellow historian friends also did the same. But I agree it is quite confusing for most people. For example I still referring Liu Biao as Liu Jingsheng all the time. One of the example of this confusing naming system is perhaps the famous legalist Shang Yang. His surname is Gongsun, then related to the Wei royalty and usually called Wei Yang, then granted a fiefdom of Shang and commonly known as Shang Yang since then. His position as Lord of Shang/ 商君 is perhaps another good example of how someone could use their fiefdom name as a clan name. I remember the same case happened to the forefather of Shimazu clan in Japan. He was originally the 4th son of shogun Minamoto Yoritomo, then granted the surname Koremune and becoming the part of that clan. Later he is enfeoffed as jito (地頭)/ land steward of Shimazu estate and proceed to use the estate name as his new surname, hence his name is Shimazu Tadahisa. The clan still exist now and traced their lineage to the original Minamoto clan. So in this case, I understand your explanation about the name. This is a great learning content! Thank you for bringing this topic.

[@Fengxain]

Thank you for this ST. For the longest time I thought “Style names” were somehow related to a combat style. Lu Bu styled in the Fengxian style of using the sky halberd 😂 I still feel stupid for thinking that.

[@lettuceimage4840]

love hearing this kind of stuff, I’m writing a story rn influenced heavily by 3K and as an American this kind of stuff helps so much! Never change ST

[@patrickdormeus8453]

Dynasty warriors example: Sun Jian "Tiger OF Jiang dong" Zhang fei "Zhang fei OF Yan" Zhao Yun "Dragon OF Chang Sha" In game these characters always refer to themselves in third person whenever in battle.

[@Tobbs96]

That moment when just the number of people named Li is almost ten times the total population of my entire country.

[@yeeyee5057]

I think it's really interesting that most of these surnames are still passed down to today, if I had to guess my last name probably didn't originate that far back.

[@ssrbgangimaribotan6thofthe12]

I'm really glad about this surname and clan name explanations. It clears up why our relatives always asked where are we originated from, which is like a way to differentiate each other in a social gathering of hundreds of people now i realize it. i'm born from two major chinese clans based on indonesia (albeit a minor branch) my father is of lin (written as forest instead of the chinese royal family lin, pronounced as lim in local dialect) clan and my mother from chen clan (of the chen royal family minor branch, pronounced as tan with our local dialect). which lead us to have direct connection to some major figures of our clans thanks to the clan events that occurs every few years. i don't know if other chinese families in indonesia or other countries also have this kind of clan events or not but i often come with my father to socialize in those social gatherings.

[@Aahe42]

Awesome I love learning about this subject, my last name is Held, it comes from a yiddish german word for Hero which I thought was pretty cool, prominent in Silesia during medieval times, I've been able to find some info about some of my ancestors coming from Poland around WW2

[@gergoradoczi8939]

great content! I love that there is always something fresh on that lore channel :)

[@haisek.sasaki9617]

it's a shame stylized names fell out of favor, especially in the states; I would love to have one, especially since I feel that birth names usually don't correspond to who you are

[@haisek.sasaki9617]

Additionally, the amount of friends with the surname Chen is staggering, even some from places like Thailand

[@HighPriestFuneral]

@@haisek.sasaki9617 I've been teaching in Chinese universities for a couple of years and I stress to my students that their English name is akin to the ancient practice of the style name and should be treated with the same amount of seriousness when choosing it as, if they choose to take a career dealing with English in any capacity, it will become a primary name in certain social circles.

[@garethwilkes1673]

This was such an interesting video! I'm really enjoying all the Lore recently

[@engkohjahat7795]

Finally, my requested content 😍

[@MCorpReview]

Your title evokes memories of Shakespeare s a rose 🌹 by any name. I still recall ubs having 3 John smiths and uob having 3 Patrick chans and thinking 🤔 yo what’s that about?? In thailand some minor royals have the word na as a middle name which means something like of. A friend o mine once sent me one of these most population. And turns out some of them have bigger populations than smaller countries!!!

[@leezhengjie6958]

This is a suggestion and it is up to you, but imo i think it would be interesting if you would have a series about the surname's origin, meaning, famous people or legend surrounding the clans name

[@SeriousTrivia]

Way too many surnames to cover though

[@illuaFGC]

love this and am looking forward to more!

[@lobsterlovesfish]

Excellent lecture! THank you!

[@maverator]

I’ll be interested in subsequent parts which will hopefully explain how shi can be there twice but with two different meanings.

[@SeriousTrivia]

There are many many Chinese characters that shares the same sound but are written different similar to say to, two, and too but much more common in Chinese

[@maverator]

@@SeriousTrivia thank you!

[@heksyrszager5242]

In middle chinese 氏 sounds 'dʒi' whereas 諡 sounds 'ʒi'. The phonetics had been greatly simplified in later development of many sinitic languages just as the one(Standard Mandarin) adopted by ST.

[@betegarcia6766]

Great and deep content as always

[@nnnn3808]

Great video, thanks for this

[@tydalm.9665]

The Romans had similar names. For example Gaius Juliu Caesa's family name was "Julius" (the family of Julia) and his clan name was "Caesar".

[@tydalm.9665]

ST, I thought you had German in school. :) The pronunciation of "von" is like "fonn" (and "van " like "fun"). "V" is almost always pronounced like that. Only sometimes it's pronounced like the German "w" in Latin based words like "verb" for example.

[@SeriousTrivia]

Yep five years of German down the drain (I do know that it’s suppose to be a f sound but somehow I Americanized it for some reason)

[@amorayyyyy]

I also can trace my surname back to the 5 ancient surnames.

[@netherjoshua]

How did Regions/Commanderies get their names btw? Curious since they affected gentry surnames so much.

[@SeriousTrivia]

This varies too much to really explain in a comment. It’s almost like asking why David is spelled like David and Paul spelled Paul.

[@alexalexpark12]

So yuan shu's full German name is Shu Yuan Von Runan?

[@SeriousTrivia]

That would work

[@tydalm.9665]

@@SeriousTrivia This wouldn't work,as "von" has to be in lowercase letters, since it's not a noun. "Von" with a capital "V" doesn't mean anything (unless at the start of a sentence)

[@mustafacalkap26]

How normal people at the time got their surnames and clan names? I think they had surnames from common ancestors like yellow emperor but how did it change to clan names? Gentry clans got that because they had land but people with no fief had clan names too. Am I missing something? Thank you for your products btw. They are top quality.

[@SeriousTrivia]

How do we get our last names lol. It’s whatever our father had

[@kennysorel]

is it possible to notate the tone for the chinese terms?

[@SeriousTrivia]

I can but then I would have to explain tones too…a bit easier this way

[@kennysorel]

@@SeriousTrivia oh right lol. yea that would be like a whole thing to explain

[@DarkDragon5551669]

awesome, I guess the 4/5 characters name are from the ethnic tribes that immigrated to China?

[@SeriousTrivia]

sort of but while they make up a large number of the added variety, they are only a small percentage of the population due to the high concentration among a few of the core surnames

[@marcusloi5950]

where would hainan be in three kingdom time ? and their surnames ?

[@SeriousTrivia]

Hainan as in the island? Why would that have a surname?

[@marcusloi5950]

Oh as in the people there ... Well you see my ancestors are from Hainan region

[@SeriousTrivia]

Hainan was semi settled as a trading post on the naval silk road. There was not a lot of people in the south but throughout the dynasties more and more will migrate there so it is much more likely your ancestors migrated there in later periods.

[@chihimleung6249]

So what is your surname ST?

[@SeriousTrivia]

Zhang

[@gabe75001]

@@SeriousTrivia How far back can you trace your line? Maybe you’re related to Zhang Liao or Zhang He?

[@SeriousTrivia]

@@gabe75001 not that I know of lol

[@orirotem2298]

How dong zhuo's name was given ??

[@SeriousTrivia]

Dong is his family name so there is no choice there. Zhuo means outstanding or cream of the crop. I mean the point of these discussions is not how certain name were picked since people rarely pick their own names...

[@orirotem2298]

@@SeriousTrivia so the tyrant's name is zhuo ?

[@eliu868]

@@orirotem2298 Yeah his "first" or given name is

[@SeriousTrivia]

Yes, Chinese names have their surname (last name or family name) first followed by their "first name" so in this case for Dong Zhuo, Dong is his "last name" and Zhuo would be his "first name"

[@orirotem2298]

@@SeriousTrivia and how a name like mine is looking in the chinese format in this video ?

[@jonwanrocks]

^^^ ^^^

[@orirotem2298]

And iam curious to know li jue's son li li was real ?

[@SeriousTrivia]

Li Jue's son's name is Li Shi. His nephew's name was Li Li if that is who you are referring to. And in case you think the name is funny looking, it looks like this in Chinese 李利 which as you can see are actually two different character with two different tones and pronunciations. They only end up looking the same when you use pinyin without any tone markers