Song is the
pinyin transliteration of the
Chinese family name宋. It is transliterated as Sung in
Wade-Giles, and Soong is also a common transliteration. In addition to being a common surname, it is also the name of a Chinese dynasty, the Song dynasty, written with the same character.
The first written record of the character
宋 (Sòng) was found on the oracle bones of the
Shang dynasty.
State of Song
In the written records of Chinese history, the first time the character Song was used as a surname appeared in the early stage of the
Zhou dynasty. One of the children of the last emperor of the
Shang dynasty,
Weizi Qi (微子启), was a duke from the state named Song, who descended from his ancestor
Xie (契) whose name was derived from the surname
Zi (子).
Xie was born from
Jiandi from the swallow from the blackbird egg, who came from
Yousong (有娀), the legendary state.[1] The
State of Song, Song's dominion, became part of the Zhou dynasty after the fall of the
Shang dynasty, and was inherited from the dynasty formally in 11th century BC. Citizens of the former State of Song commemorated the overthrow of their state in 286 BC by the
State of Qi owned by
Tian, who began to use the character Song as their surname, which is the authentic branch.[2]
From the Taiping Guangji, The Duke Jing of Song assigned the surname Song to a savage, who was named Ziwei (子韦), in charge of
astronomy as
Fangshi, whose alias was Sixing (司星).
Song dynasty
Emperor Huizong of Song's officer changed his name to Song, using the dynasty name as a family name, which was the imperial clan branch of the
Song dynasty.[3]
Charlie Soong changed his family name from
Han to Soon, then Soong, which was one of the accepted English spellings of the dynasty name
Song, the dynasty from the tenth to the thirteenth century in China.[4][5]
There is a family clan originally located in
Pingyang called Dashila (答失剌) who have used this character since the Ming dynasty.[2]
Moreover, the surname branched off into a clan derived from an ancestor named Temuer or Timur (帖木儿) with the grant of a seal who used the character since
Ming dynasty. From the history records, it may refer to Knight of
Fenyang, who is the descendant of
Godan Khan.[2]
Blood type distribution
Population of surname Song's
ABO blood type distribution is O blood type 31.3%, B blood type 30.6%, A blood type 28.4% and AB blood type 9.7%.[7]
Variations
A less common Chinese family name, Chóng (
崇) can also be transliterated to Soong in some Chinese dialects.
Brenda Song, b. 1988, 熊 (original surname
Xiong (熊; Xyooj in Hmong), but changed their last name to Song when the family immigrated to the United States
This page lists people with the
surnameSong. If an
internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that
link by adding the person's
given name(s) to the link.