ON NAMES and Chinese Genealogy and surfing around

The China Experience: The origin of Chinese Surnames: "As a clan-name indicates the ancestral home, it is also carved on a man's tombstone to indicate a hope that he will return there.

This went on for 800 years until the rule of Emperor Tang Tai Zong (627 AD). Gao Shi Lian, a government official, made a survey and found that there were a total of 593 different surnames.

He then wrote and published a book called 'Annal of Surnames' which became a reference for selecting qualified personnel as government officials and for arranging marriages.

The book, 'Surnames of a Hundred Families', which was popular in China during the old days, was written more than 1,000 years ago during the Northern Song Dynasty (960 AD).

It records 438 surnames of which 408 are single-word surnames and 30 were double-word surnames.

According to the latest statistics from China, Chinese with the surname Zhang alone number more than 100 million, making it probably the surname which the most number of the Chinese have.

<<<< and the most popular surname in the world ???? >>>>

Another set of statistics compiled in 1977 reveals that the number of the Chinese with the first 10 major surnames make up 40% of the Chinese population.

The 10 major Chinese surnames are:
Zhang, Wang, Li, Zhao, Chen, Yang, Wu, Liu, Huang and Zhou.

Below are the next 10 major surnames.
The Chinese with these surnames make up over 10% of the Chinese population: Xu, Zhu, Lin, Sun, Ma, Gao, Hu, Zheng, Guo and Xiao.

The number of the Chinese in the third category of 10 major surnames make up just about 10% of the population:
Xie, He, Xu, Song, Shen, Luo, Han, Deng, Liang and Ye.

The following 15 surnames form the fouth largest group of the Chinese surnames are:
Fang, Cui, Cheng, Pan, Cao, Feng, Wang, Cai, Yuan, Lu, Tang, Qian, Du, Pe"


WOW but the good news is some CLAN have MSS records in the Clan temple going back thousand (s) of years
which survived the teenagers and their CULTURAL REVOLUTION because they were buried i jars secretly hidden under house floors for example.

Makes Danish and Welsh patronymics look simple

Patronymic - Wikipedia: "A patronymic is a personal name based on the name of one's father."


a few Swedish matronymics seen
Google Search: Swedish matronymics: " Our family name comes from a 17th century Swedish homestead settlement in western Finland, called..."

place names, occupations, nicknames

what IS in a name ?

Google Search: All Jewish men were known by patronymics and all Jewish women had matronymics. new to me.


Jewish Names in the World of Medieval Islam: "This paper will attempt to analyze the form and function of the names of Jews in the medieval Islamic world and compare those naming practices to their Muslim neighbors. It will include an analysis of the elements of personal names, bynames, family names, and the grammar of these names.
In modern times the concept of a personal name has become very formalized. In English we expect to see one or more given names and then an inherited family name. Before modern times names were much more fluid in format and structure as I will show. "

"In addition to personal names many people also appear in the historical record with a byname that is a term of personal description. While many people appear with some form of descriptive byname many people do not. These names differ from surnames, in that a surname is something that is passed on from parent to child and identifies the family. A byname is an term of personal description that would often be applied to someone as an adult. However many surnames originated as some form of byname that became permanent over time. In Hebrew this tends to be done with the grammatical prefix ha- and in Arabic with the prefix al-. "

And I still think of them as NICKNAMES


now muttering -- byname BYNAME BYNAMES: "A Brief Introduction to Medieval Bynames. ... Bynames contrast with the inherited
surnames which are almost universal in the modern world."

bit like learning to spell PATRONYMIC not PATRYNOMIC or PATRINOMIC



I need to concentrate

Google Search: PATRINOMIC: "Re: Greenlandic - can it be considered a North American language ...
... to be descend from Flemish mercenary soldiers Hugh W a popular Flemish name - Gwalter
Gwalterkin (pet name or diminutive) Gwatkinson (patrinomic) Watkins my ...
soc.culture.nordic - 18 Dec 1997 by Hugh Watkins "

now I know GW is a LATIN thing because W is not in the old LATIN alphabet which confuses U and V too

Google Search: gvalter leads to ITALY

Google Search: gvalter: " Is Gualter (or Gvalter) is neither a German nor a Swedish
name. Is it Scotish ? "

Google Search: gualter: "Gualter Family History
The Gualter family genealogy. (Brazil)
A genealogia da familia Gualter.
A maior parte da familia vive no Brasil. Gualter."




see !!!
OLD SPELLING MISTAKES NEVER DIE < sigh >


from my bookmarks:-

Welsh Patronymics: "This page explains patronymic naming in the context of Welsh family history"

Virtually Virtual Iceland - Culture, history, travel, society, birds, landscapes, photos, electronic postcards: "Family names as such are not commonly used in Iceland,
and the question 'Do you know Eiríksson?'
is really meaningless, as the definition is missing. "



Google Search: icelandic patronymics: "Foreign nationals shall adopt an Icelandic first name when they acquire Icelandic
nationality and their descendants shall abide by the rule on patronymics"

National Library of Iceland - Icelandic National Bibliography
... section. It is important to note that Icelandic persons are entered
under their given names, not their surnames or patronymics.

Icelandic Culture: "Iceland was settled by Norsemen from Scandinavia and Celts from the British Isles. The ruling class was Nordic, so both the Icelandic language and culture were purely Scandinavian from the outset. Traces of Celtic influence are apparent, however, in some of the Eddaic poems, in present-day names and in the appearance of the Icelanders, who have a higher percentage of dark-haired people amongst them than any of the other Nordic nations. In or around the year 1100 the population, then entirely rural, is estimated to have numbered about 70-80,000 people. During the eighteenth century it sank below 40,000 on three separate occasions, but by the year 1900 had reached 78,000. "

"Only about 10% of Icelanders have surnames or family names. The rest use the system of patronymics, i.e. instead of a surname the first name of the father is used with "son" or "dóttir" added to it. Thus Magnússon means son of Magnús and Bjarnadóttir means daughter of Bjarni."

Surnames are actually forbidden unless in use before 1911 so survive as middle names

Genealogy: "Local Names
The hugely popular integrated database of Irish family names, now boasting over 7000 entries. We've had several success stories since the inception of Local Names almost two years ago, with many people making contact with long lost relatives and friends. Check the database for your family name - and best of luck! "

and FRENCH names too - in Ireland and Denmark

HUGUENOTS: "Huguenot is the name given to Protestants in France during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The Lutheran form of Protestantism entered France about 1520 and soon met with opposition from the Catholics. The work of John Calvin (1509-1564) greatly influenced and furthered the cause of French Protestantism which secured adherents chiefly from the middle class and the nobility. As the Protestant movement gained in strength, opposition to it likewise increased until, toward the end of the reign of Francis I (1497-1547), the Huguenots were being severely persecuted. The Protestants developed their organization as they increased in numbers, holding their first synod in 1559, at which time they adopted a code based on the doctrines of Calvinism.
Persecution of the Huguenots as heretics increased under Henry II, who reigned from 1547 to 1559. The members of the Guise family, which had grown in power during the reign of Francis I, were bitterly opposed to the Huguenots, whose cause was upheld by the powerful and influential Bourbons. Friction between the opposing factions increased until the first \civil war broke out in 1562, when the Guises seized the young king, Charles IX (1550-1574) and the Huguenots, under Prince de Conde and Admiral Colginy, took up arms against the Catholics.
A series of eight civil wars followed which lasted with intervals of peace, until the treaty of Vervins (q1598) brought the conflicts to an end. Queen-mother and regent for Cahrles IX, in her efforts to maintain herself in power, sometimes opposed and sometimes favored the cause of the Huguenots, depending upon what she considered at the time to be politically advantageous.

On August 24, 1572, thousands of Protestants were killed in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, but this only served to strengthen the cause of the Huguenots. King Henry IV "