xìng
one's family name
Phonosemantic compound. 女 represents the meaning and 生 represents the sound.
Evolution
Oracle script
(~1250-1000 BC)
Bronze script
Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernMost common words with 姓
Freq. | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
surname | ||
full name | ||
common people | ||
ordinary people | ||
family name |
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*seŋ-s | sjengH | xìng | surname |
Statistics
HSK level 2
Appears in 19.6700% of movies
1502nd most common character in movies
1149th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 8 |
Unicode | U+59D3 |
Shuowen | “姓，人所生也。古之神聖母，感天而生子，故稱天子。从女，从生，生亦聲。《春秋傳》曰：‘天子因生以賜姓。’” |
Sources
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