Yan (surname 顏)

Last updated
颜 / 顏
RomanizationMandarin: Yan
Hokkien: Gan
Cantonese: Ngan
Vietnamese: Nhan
Korean: An
PronunciationYán, Ngan4, Gân
GenderMasculine
Language(s)Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese
Origin
Meaning“face”, colour

Also known as Gan in Hokkien, Ngan in Cantonese, Nhan in Vietnamese and An in Korean.

Contents

The surname is the 112th most common surname in the People's Republic of China in 2016, mostly concentrated in Hunan, Guangxi and Hubei regions, with total population of around 1.7 million.

Yan was listed 143rd on the Hundred Family Surnames, in the verse Jiang Tong Yan Guo (江童顏郭).

Origins

Tomb of Yan You was unearthed in Shandong, China, since 2002. [1]

Yan You was the first king of Xiao Zhu and was originally known as Cao You. His ancestor was called Yan An who inherited a piece of land, which later flourished into the Zhu kingdom, a feudal state of Lu. According to the judicial rules of that time, Cao You had to give up his surname in order to ascend the throne. He adopted his father Yi Fu's style name Bo Yan. From then on Cao You was known as Yan You. This officially made Yan You the first Yan in Chinese history. [2] Yan An was the son of Luzhong (陸終), grandson of Zhurong clan and Wuhui (吳回). Zhurong was said to be the son of Gaoyang (also known as Zhuanxu), a sky god. Zhuanxu was a grandson of the Yellow Emperor.

It is derived from at least two sources: [3]

  1. from the personal name 顏, the style name of Duke Wu of Zhu, the king of the state of Zhu, during the Western Zhou dynasty
  2. from the name of a fief in modern Shandong province granted to Bo Qin, son of Duke of Zhou the first king of Lu during the Western Zhou dynasty

See also

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References

  1. "小邾国贵族墓出土铜器鉴赏".
  2. "Gan Heritage Chapter E-Book".
  3. by Patrick Hanks, Richard Coates, Peter McClure, The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland