Tong (surname)

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Tong is a Chinese surname. Tong as transcribed in English however represents of a number of different Chinese surnames.

There were 8,589 Tongs in the United States during the year 2000 census, making it the 3,075th surname overall and the 121st surname among Asian and Pacific Islanders.[1]

Tong was also listed among the 200-most-common Chinese surnames in a 2010 survey of the Registered Persons Database of Canadian health card recipients in the province of Ontario.[2] Tong may be the romanisation of the very common surname Zhang (張), as well as others such as Deng (鄧), Zhuang (莊), Teng (滕), and a number of Tongs (童, 同 and 佟).

Origin of some common Tongs (張, 莊, 滕, 鄧)[edit]

Tong is a Gan romanization of the Chinese surnames Zhang (trad. , simp. ) and Zhuang (trad. , simp. ).

Tong is also the Cantonese romanization of the Chinese surname Tang (唐).

同 Tóng[edit]

Tong (同)
Origin
DerivationTang of Shang
MeaningSame
Other names
Variant form(s)Tang Tung Ting
See alsoShang Dynasty

During the Shang Dynasty period, Lord Zi (子) founded the state of Tong (同国) in Shaanxi of China, later the Zi (子) family used the surname Tong (同, Tóng).[citation needed] The Tong surname may also have originated as a surname given to public officers during the middle Zhou Dynasty.

Some Tong families are said to be descendants of Sima Qian. Sima Qian was a Han Dynasty historian who wrote the Records of the Grand Historian. According to this story, when Sima Qian was put in prison by the Emperor, his children fled. His two sons decided to change their name, each using one character of the Sima surname (司马). The Si (司) was modified to Tong (同) by the addition of a stroke, while Ma (馬) was modified to Feng (馮). There remains a taboo that the two families should not intermarry.[3]

佟 Tóng[edit]

Tong (佟)
Origin
DerivationJie of Xia
Other names
Variant form(s)Teng Tang
Derivative(s)Tung
See alsoXia Dynasty

Pronounced Tong (, Tóng) in Mandarin Chinese, but Tung in Cantonese

Tong family originated from

童 Tóng[edit]

Tong (童)
Origin
DerivationZhuanxu
Other names
Variant form(s)Tung Thong Tang
See alsoThree Sovereigns and Five Emperors

Tong family originated from

See [1] 仝 for Second-round simplified Chinese character

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ US Census Bureau. 2000 US Census. Op. cit. Butler, Rhett. "Most Common Last Names for Asians and Pacific Islanders in the U.S." 2008. Retrieved 16 Apr 2012.
  2. ^ Shah, B. R.; Chiu, M.; Amin, S.; Ramani, M.; Sadry, S.; Tu, J. V. (2010). "Surname lists to identify South Asian and Chinese ethnicity from secondary data in Ontario, Canada: A validation study". BMC Medical Research Methodology. 10: 42. doi:10.1186/1471-2288-10-42. PMC 2877682. PMID 20470433.
  3. ^ "清明时节:韩城瞻仰司马迁祠墓 寻访史圣后人". CNWest.com.