It is also the pinyin romanization of the less-common surnames 章 (Zhāng), which is the 40th name on the Hundred Family Surnames poem. There is the even-less common 仉 (Zhǎng).
張 was listed 24th in the famous Song-era Hundred Family Surnames, contained in the verse 何呂施張 (He Lü Shi Zhang).
Today, it is one of the most common surnames in the world at over 100 million people worldwide.[5]
A commonly cited but erroneous factoid in the 1990 Guinness Book of Records listed it as the world's most common surname,[8] but no comprehensive information from China was available at the time and more recent editions have not repeated the claim.
Romanization
張 (张) is also sometimes romanized as:
Chang in Taiwan and among the Chinese diaspora using older romanization systems. However, Zhang has been the official first-recommended translation for 張 in Taiwan since 2017.
As mentioned above, 張 is the third-most-common surname in mainland China, making up 6.83% of the population of the People's Republic of China.[9] In 2019 it was the most common surname in exactly one provincial-level division, Shanghai municipality.[10] In Taiwan, 張 is the fourth-most-common surname, making up 5.26% of the population of the Republic of China. In 2019 it was again the third most common surname in Mainland China.[10]
Zhang Wei (张伟) has been the most common family name and given name combination in China for many years.
張 combines the Chinese characters弓 (gōng, "bow") and 長 (simp.长, cháng, "long" or "wide"). It originally meant "to open up" or "to spread" as an arching bow, but as a common noun in modern use it is a measure word for flat objects such as paper and cloth, like the English "sheet of".
Families
The traditional origin of the surname 張 (Old Chinese: *C. traŋ[1]) is rooted in Chinese legend. The fifth son of the Yellow Emperor, Qing Yangshi (simplified Chinese: 青阳氏; traditional Chinese: 青陽氏; pinyin: Qīng Yángshì), had a son Hui (挥; 揮; Huī) who was inspired by the Heavenly Bow constellation (天弓星, Tiān Gōng Xīng) to invent the bow and arrow. Hui was then promoted to "First Bow" (弓正, Gōng Zhèng) and bestowed the surname 張, which – when broken into its constituent radicals – means "widening bow" or "archer". Its Middle Chinese pronunciation has been reconstructed as Trjang.[1]
Other origins
for some families, it is traced back to Xie Zhang (解張), whose style name was Zhang Hou (張侯, lit “Marquis Zhang”) a noble in Jin during the Spring and Autumn period.
from the family of Zhang Liao (張遼), an official in Cao Wei during Three Kingdoms period. Zhāng Liao's family had changed from Nie to Zhang to avoid association with his disgraced ancestor Nie Yi (聶壹).[13]
the surname is also traced back to Long Youna, chief of a minority ethnic grous during the Three Kingdoms period, who was given the Chinese surname Zhang (張) by Zhuge Liang, the prime minister of Shu.
^Tongji weixun 统计微讯 (23 June 2014). 张、王、李、赵谁最多—2010年人口普查姓氏结构和分布特点. mp.weixin.qq.com (in Chinese). Retrieved 19 October 2020.
^最新版百家姓排行榜出炉：王姓成中国第一大姓 [Latest surname ranking: Wang is the number one surname in China]. Xinhua News Agency (in Chinese). 15 April 2013. Archived from the original on 15 April 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
^McFarlan, Donald (2001). 1990 Guinness Book of World Records. Sterling Pub. Co. ISBN189205101X.
^公安部统计：'王'成中国第一大姓 有9288万人 [Public Security Bureau Statistics: 'Wang' Found China's #1 'Big Family', Includes 92.88m People]. news.eastday.com (in Chinese). 24 April 2007. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 27 March 2012.
This page lists people with the surnameZhang. If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name(s) to the link.
