The Historical Causes of Contemporary Hundred Surnames Geography

As we all know, the distribution of surnames is regional. In his book China Surnames: Population Heredity and Population Distribution (East China Normal University Press), Mr. Yuan Yida divided the surnames of 100 in China into 12 groups by region, namely, eastern North China, northern North China, central and western North China, northeast China, southern East China, northern East China, northwestern East China, southwestern North China, eastern Central China, western Central China, and southern China. The book also studies the distribution of surnames in Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties, which provides a further explanation for today's surnames geography. The Geographical Distribution of County Surnames in Middle Ages by Mr. Hu Axiang studied the county surnames in Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties and Tang Dynasty, which is also an important article.

The geographical distribution pattern of contemporary hundred surnames is not formed for hundreds of years, but has a historical basis of thousands of years. The following describes five regions: North China (including Northeast China), Northwest China, Southwest China, Central China and Southeast China (including East China and South China). Each region is named according to the proportion of surname source.

● Summer-land mixed zone in North China

North China is the birthplace of the Chinese nation, and the Han nationality in Northeast China mainly moved from North China in the past hundred years, so it is actually a region with North China.

During the Spring and Autumn Period, the monarch of the State of Qi thought that he was the surname, and there were Guo, Gao, Cui, Tian and so on. Later, Tian usurped Qi. In the Middle Ages, there were Boling (now Anping, Hebei Province) and Qinghe (now Linqing, Shandong Province) in Cui County, so Jiang, Lu, Gao, Cui and Tian were the most popular surnames in North China, and they have been spread to Northeast China since modern times. In the Spring and Autumn Period, there was a Chunyu family in Shandong, and later generations took Chunyu as their surname. In the Tang Dynasty, in order to avoid the ritual of Xian Zongchun, they changed their surnames to Yu. The Biography of Eastern Yi in the Later Han Dynasty recorded that Jiuyi was a foreigner, and Donghai and Langxie were famous in the Han Dynasty, and they were in Dingguo and Yuji, so there are more surnames in Shandong and Northeast China today. Xianbei did not change his surname, but added his surname in North China. Sun Wu and Sun Bin were both Qi people. In the Middle Ages, there were Le 'an, Langxie and Taiyuan, which are still concentrated in North China.

Confucius and Mencius, the founder of Confucianism, are from Shandong, so Shandong is porous and named Meng. Confucius' ancestors were Song people, and the surname of Song originated from the Song State (now Shangqiu, Henan Province), so the surname of Song was mainly distributed in the eastern part of North China.

Sanjin is Korea, Zhao and Wei, and these three surnames are mainly in North China. Small countries such as Han (now Hejin in Shanxi), Wei (now Xiaxian in Shanxi and Kaifeng in Henan), Dong (now Wanrong in Shanxi), Jia (now Linfen in Shanxi) and Guo (now Sanmenxia in Henan) were all annexed by the State of Jin in the Spring and Autumn Period. Guo, Guo and Guo are all here. Therefore, Guo, Jia and other surnames are mainly distributed in the central and western regions of North China. Fan was originally one of the six masters of the Qing Dynasty, and later fled to Qi State, where he settled down in the county (now Liangshan, Shandong Province). At the end of the Warring States period, Shangdang Prefecture surrendered to Zhao. Feng's ancestral home (now Xingyang, Henan). "Nine Years of Zuo Gong" records that "people and Jia contend for Yan Tian", and Yan is also the land of Jin, and Yan has always been the most popular surname in Jin. Zhang's surname originated in Linyi, Shanxi Province, so in the Warring States, Qin and Han Dynasties, Zhang was in Sanjin, Zhang Yi, Zhang Cang and Zhang Er were there, and Sean was a Korean. Today, Zhang is still mainly in North China. Li also originated from Sanjin, Zhao Li Mu and Wei. In the Middle Ages, the surname Li of Zhao and Longxi was the most expensive, but it didn't become the first surname until now, including Turkic, Qidan, Persian, Koryo, Uighur, Tangut and many other nationalities.

Originated in Renguo (now Jining), there were Le 'an, Shu, Xihe and Jiangxia in the Middle Ages. Most of the stone people in Le 'an County may be descendants of Ren Guo, and there may be other sources in the northwest of the stone people. Historical Records of Qin Benji is despised by Qin people.

According to Volume 5 of Records of Yuanhe's Family, Chang is a native of Changyi, Wei. Volume 70 of Hanshu records that Changhui was from Taiyuan County in the early Han Dynasty, and Huaizhou (Hanoi County) and Dezhou (Pingyuan County) were counties in the Tang Dynasty, which laid the foundation for the distribution of Changhui in North China today.

The Wu family mainly lived in the Central Plains in the pre-Qin period. According to historical records, Chen (now Huaiyang, Henan Province) and Xu Yi, Jiangsu Province) both participated in the military and later became Zhao Wang. Wu Shi of Shanxi gave birth to Wu Zetian in the Tang Dynasty, and Wu Shi is mainly distributed in today's North China.

According to the tenth volume of Yuan and surname spectrum in Tang Dynasty, Hao is a human being. In the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, Hao's characters are in Shangdang, Taiyuan and Yunzhong, and there is a surname in the Fifth Ring Road in western Liaoning. Zhou Shu records that the Huns have A Hao family, so the Hao family is mainly distributed in today's North China. The four surnames of Xiongnu nobles in the Book of Jin are Joe, while 90 Qiao Zhiming in the Book of Jin is a front-line person of Xianbei. Today, Qiao's family is mainly in North China, which has a lot to do with the fact that some Qiao's family originated from Xiongnu and Xianbei. According to the Records of Guanshi in Shu Wei, the Xiongnu and Helan changed their surnames to He, making the current He mainly distributed in the northwest of North China. Eastern Zhejiang in the south is also a concentrated area of He's family, but it was after the Six Dynasties that the He's family was benefited, and it was not changed by northerners.

In addition to clear records, there are a large number of ethnic groups in Saibei that have merged into many surnames of the Han nationality in northern China in various ways, so I won't elaborate on them here.

● Northwest Rongxia mixed area

Northwest China has been the gateway between China and the western regions since ancient times, and a large number of immigrants from the western regions settled in the northwest after coming to China. They take their original country names or surnames as surnames, and Cao, Shi, Kang, Mi, Shi and An in Central Asia (the six countries are in present-day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan), so Cao, Shi, Kang, Mi, Shi and An in northwest China today are mostly descendants of immigrants from the western regions. Many other nationalities have changed their surnames to the above-mentioned surnames. As recorded in "Official Records of Shu Wei", Shi Lan in Xianbei was changed to Shishi, and Shi Jingtang in the latter Jin Dynasty was Shatuo.

Cao County was located in the east of Tang Dynasty, including Qiaocheng (now Bozhou, Anhui Province), Gaoping (now Weishan, Shandong Province), Jiyang (now Lankao, Henan Province) and Le 'an (now Gaoqing, Shandong Province). In the history of Tang Dynasty, the surnames were Linzi, Beihai (now Linzi and Weifang) and Jingzhao (now Xi 'an). The former two originated from eastern historians, while the latter may be immigrants from the western regions. For example, during the Kaiyuan period, Ashna, a Turk, changed his surname to Shi.

In the Middle Ages, the Xue family in Hedong was the most famous. The Xue family in Hedong comes from the southwest Shu country (Liu Shufen: Hedong Shu School in Northern Wei Dynasty, Family and Society edited by Huang Kuan Chong Liu Zenggui, China Encyclopedia Publishing House, 2005), so the Xue family is mainly in the northwest.

Qin's surname originated from Qin, Du's surname originated from Du (Jin 'an), and Ma's surname undoubtedly originated from the northwest region where horses were produced. The famous horse surname in Han Dynasty was Fufeng, and these surnames are still mostly in North China.

● Southwest summer and barbarian mixed area

The first surname in Southwest China is Yang, who is from Yangzhou (now Pingyang, Shanxi). Why is it mainly distributed in the southwest? This should start from the state of Qin. Qin destroyed Ba and Shu, moved to Guanzhong and Shanxi, and recovered Sichuan, which was still relatively wild at that time. Huayangzhi, a long canal in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, recorded the most popular county surnames in southwest China during the Han and Wei Dynasties. We can divide these surnames into four groups from the source: (1) Bai, Gan, Du, Ren, Qin and so on. (2) Yang, Zhao, Han, Wei, Dong, Pu, Lin, Feng, Ma, Fan, Yan, Guo, Zhai, Fox, Liu, Wei Xiao, Zhang, etc. From gold; (3) Jing, Deng, Chen, Xie, He, Chu, Cai, Huang, Wu, etc. Leave Chu; (4) Indigenous surnames include Xiang, Lei, Xiang and Gan. The Jin Dynasty was the largest, mainly because the Jin people were close to the State of Qin, and they were the first foreigners to be conquered by the Qin people. Moreover, Hedong was densely populated and needed immigrants.

If Yang is still the most popular surname in China, then Luo, Tang, Deng and Zeng are the four most popular surnames in Southwest China. Luo originated from Luo (Yicheng, Zhijiang and Miluo, Hubei), surnamed tang from Tang (Suizhou, Hubei), Deng from Xiangfan, Hubei, and Zeng from Suizhou, Hubei. These four countries were on the southwest edge of the distribution area of China in the Spring and Autumn Period, so after the Chinese nation spread from the Central Plains to all directions, these four surnames further spread to today's southwest region. Roche and Zeng entered Hunan very early, so they are also the most popular names in Central and South China. The first of the seven surnames in the Book of the Later Han Dynasty (86 volumes) is Luo, indicating that Roche had barbarians long ago.

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