Sheng (surname)

Shēng (生)
PronunciationShēng (Mandarin)
LanguageChinese
Origin
LanguageOld Chinese
Other names
Variant forms

Sheng is the Mandarin pinyin and Wade–Giles romanization of the Chinese surname written with the Chinese character 生 or 盛. It is romanized as Shing based on its Cantonese pronunciation, or Seng based on its Southern Min pronunciations. It is a rare Chinese surname that is widely distributed but with a relatively small population.

Sheng is listed 146th in the Song dynasty classic text Hundred Family Surnames.[1] As of 2008, it is the 175th most common surname in China, shared by 700,000 people.[2]

History

Literature

In ancient classic literature such as Zhuangzi and Gangjian — Yizhilu, Yuchao, Suiren, and Zhisheng (知生) were believed to be the pioneers who taught people production techniques. So, they were commonly respected as the "Three Emperors" as a title of honor for their contributions.

There had a sentence refer to the surname, "in summer, gather firewood, and in winter, burn it, hence the people were named Zhisheng's people".

Zhuangzi mentioned that Yuchao, Suiren, and Zhisheng were the representative figures of three important eras in history. Taiping Guangji Laozi referred to Heaven, Earth, and Humanity as the "Upper Three Emperors" while Yuchao, Suiren, and Zhisheng were the "Lower Three Emperors". They represents an important development stage in human history, where Yuchao solved the problem of human settlement, Suiren solved the food problem, and Zhisheng began to teach people how to produce, thus opening the era of agricultural civilization.

Notable people

References

  1. ^ "百家姓" [Hundred Family Surnames] (in Chinese). Guoxue. Retrieved 2014-10-28.
  2. ^ 中国最新300大姓排名（2008） [300 most common surnames in China (2008)] (in Chinese). Taiwan.cn. 2009-01-06. Retrieved 2014-10-28.
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