Qian,also variously spelt Ch'ien,Chien,Chin,Tsien,and (from its Wu pronunciation) Zee,is a common Chinese surname. It is particularly common in Eastern China,where members of the family ruled from Hangzhou as kings of Wuyue in the 10th-century interregnum between the Tang and Songdynasties. In 2008,Qian was the 96th most common surname in mainland China,shared by 2.2 million people,with the greatest concentration of Qians being in Jiangsu Province.[1]
The traditional character for the name 錢 is a phono-semantic compound formed by a 金 (copper,metal,gold) radical on the left and 戔—a character now pronounced jiān and meaning "to harm","tiny",or "accumulating" in different contexts but used at the time for its closer pronunciation in Old Chinese—on the right. Jiān itself was an ideograph taking its meaning from Chinese dagger-axes (戈,gē) used originally in opposition and later in conjunction. The simplified form of the character 钱 uses a more stylized 钅 on the left and a new glyph 戋 on the right that adds an extra line to 戈 to indicate its previous duplication.
The name literally means "money" but previously particularly referred to the cash,a low-denomination coin made from copper,bronze,and other base metals that was used in imperial and early Republican China. Less commonly,the word is used metonymically for expense,property,value,etc.;for small round discs similar to the coins;and for the mace,the small traditional unit of mass equivalent to the notional weight of the coins after Tang-era monetary reforms.[2] Still less commonly,it is used for small metal farm tools,particularly spades[2] (cf. spade money,once common in China under the Zhou).
According to legends related in the Song-eraTongzhi encyclopedia,the Qian surname supposedly originated from a Zhou official named Fu who worked in the royal treasury,then known as the Qianfu (錢府,"Money Office"). His descendants adopted the surname from his office and title. The legend further claimed that Fu had been a descendant of Pengzu,a long-lived and extremely virile "marquis" of Dapeng in present-day Jiangsu under the Shang,who was himself a descendant of Zhuanxu,one of the Five Emperors of remote antiquity sometimes conflated with the North Star and its gods,who was himself reckoned a grandson of the Yellow Emperor,the culture hero credited with beginning Chinese civilization.[3] Dynasts and residents of Peng,the Qian family were thought to have originally congregated around its capital Xiapi,present-day Pizhou in Jiangsu. The surname spread from there but remains most common in Jiangnan,the region of eastern China around the Yangtze River Delta and Hangzhou Bay.
From ad907–960, Qian Liu and his descendants ruled the largely independent Kingdom of Wuyue during the interregnum between the Tang and Songdynasties. Qian Liu had many, many sons by many wives and concubines and posted them to prominent positions across different parts of his realm, greatly expanding the prominence of the surname across a territory comprising present-day Zhejiang, Shanghai, southern Jiangsu, and northern Fujian. Following the submission of Qian Chu to the Song in 978, he and some members of his immediate family were removed to the Song capital Bianjing, now Kaifeng in Henan. Considered loyal and capable, the family remained prominent at the Song court for generations. This period spread the family through central and northern China as well. The Chinese classic list of the Hundred Family Surnames was composed under the Song. As the royal dynasty of the successful and loyal realm of Wuyue, Qian placed second in the list only behind Zhao, the surname of the imperial Song dynasty itself. Further, almost all the other families in the list's first line—Sun, Zhou, Wu, Zheng, and Wang—seem to have been given their placement as the families of Qian Chu's wives in their order of status.[4]
Qian Yunlu (錢運彔/钱运录; born 1944), People's Republic of China politician
Qian Wen-yuan (born 1936–2003), Chinese-American physicist and historian
Qian Zhengying (錢正英/钱正英; born 1923–2022), hydrologist, People's Republic of China politician
Qian Zhiguang[zh] (錢之光/钱之光; born 1900–1994), Minister of Light Industry and Minister of Textile Industry
Qian Zhijun (錢志君/钱志君; born 1987), actor and subject of the "Little Fatty" internet meme
Qian Zhimin (錢智民/钱智民; born 1960), former President of China National Nuclear Corporation
Qian Zhongshu (錢鍾書/钱锺书; born 1910–1998), scholar and writer
Qian Zhuangfei (錢壯飛/钱壮飞; born 1895–1935), Chinese intelligence agent
Robert Tienwen Chien (錢天問/钱天问; born 1931–1983), American Computer Scientist, University of Illinois Professor, Director of Coordinated Science Laboratory
Ronny Chieng (錢信伊/钱信伊), Malaysian Chinese standup comedian and actor
Roger Y. Tsien (錢永健/钱永健; born 1952–2016), biologist, 2008 Nobel Prize winner
Shu Chien (錢煦/钱煦; born 1931), biological scientist and engineer
Tsien Tsuen-hsuin (錢存訓/钱存训; born 1909–2015), sinologist, University of Chicago professor
Qian Min (錢敏/钱敏; born1927–2019), mathematical physicist, winner of the 11th Hua Luogeng Prize in Mathematics
Joe Z. Tsien (錢卓/钱卓; born 1962), Neuroscientist and geneticist, the pioneer of Cre/lox neurogenetics and the creator of smart mouse Doogie. He is also known for his Theory of Connectivity regarding the basic logic of brain computation and the origin of intelligence.
Chang-Kan Chien (錢昌淦/钱昌淦; born 1904–1940), engineer, builder of Hangzhou bridge, bridges on the Burma Road during WWII. Was killed by Japanese fighter planes during the war.
Qian Kun (錢錕/钱锟; born 1996), singer, member of South Korean group NCT and its Chinese sub-unit WayV (威神V)
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