Xiong (surname)
Pronunciation | Xióng (Pinyin) Hîm, Hiông (Pe̍h-ōe-jī) |
---|---|
Language(s) | Chinese |
Origin | |
Language(s) | Old Chinese |
Derivation | Jilian |
Meaning | "bear" |
Other names | |
Variant form(s) | Xiong, Hsiung (Mandarin) Xyooj (Hmong) Hung, Hong (Cantonese) Him (Hokkien) Hong, Yoong (Hakka) Hiōng (Gan) Hùng (Vietnamese) |
Cognate(s) | Mi (surname) (芈) |
See also | Zhurong ( |
Xiong is the pinyin romanization of the Chinese surname
Romanizations
[edit]Note that "Hong" and "Hung" may also refer to the unrelated surname
Distribution
[edit]Although Chinese make up the largest part of the United States' population of Asian Pacific Americans,[1] none of the romanizations of
Origins
[edit]Xiong's literal meaning is "bear".
In ancient China, it was used as a clan name by a branch of the Mi (芈), the royal family of the state of Chu. As recorded by Sima Qian, they claimed descent from Zhuanxu, a son of the Yellow Emperor in Chinese mythology, and Yuxiong (鬻熊), a tutor of the King Wen of Zhou in the 11th century BC. After the victory of the King Wu of Zhou over the Shang dynasty at the Battle of Muye c. 1046 BC, Yuxiong's descendants supposedly remained prominent at the Zhou court and took the surname Xiong. The King Cheng of Zhou (r. 1042–1021 BC) then appointed Xiong Yi, Yuxiong's great-grandson, viscount of the fief of Chu.[3] More likely, the clan name is a calque of a non-Sinitic dynasty, with modern scholarship believing the character 芈 was used to transcribe a Kam–Tai word also meaning "bear".[4]
Eventually rising to the status of kings, the family retained control of Chu until its conquest by Qin during the Warring States period. Some regained control of later successor states and the surname remains prominent in the provinces formerly comprising the territory of Chu.[citation needed]
List of persons with the surname
[edit]
Xiong[edit]
|
Hsiung[edit]
Hung[edit]
Song[edit]
Yoong[edit]
|
References
[edit]Citations
[edit]- ^ United States Census Bureau. "Census 2000: Chinese Largest Asian Group in the United States". 4 Mar 2002. Accessed 29 Mar 2012.
- ^ United States Census Bureau. "Genealogy Data: Frequently Occurring Surnames from Census 2000". 27 Sept 2011. Accessed 29 Mar 2012.
- ^ Sima Qian. "
楚 世 家 (House of Chu)". Records of the Grand Historian (in Chinese). Retrieved 3 December 2011. - ^ Schuessler (2007).
Bibliography
[edit]- Schuessler, Axel (2007), ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese, Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.