Xiong (surname)

Xiong

Xiong surname in regular script
Pronunciation	Xióng (Pinyin) Hîm, Hiông (Pe̍h-ōe-jī)
Language(s)	Chinese
Origin
Language(s)	Old Chinese
Derivation	Jilian
Meaning	"bear"
Other names
Variant form(s)	Xiong, Hsiung (Mandarin) Xyooj (Hmong) Hung, Hong (Cantonese) Him (Hokkien) Hong, Yoong (Hakka) Hiōng (Gan) Hùng (Vietnamese)
Cognate(s)	Mi (surname) (芈)
See also	Zhurong (祝融)

Xiong is the pinyin romanization of the Chinese surname 熊 (Xióng). It is 41st in the Hundred Family Surnames, contained in the verse 熊紀舒屈 (Xiong, Ji, Shu, Qu).

Romanizations

熊 is also romanized as Hsiung² in Wade-Giles. It is Hung or Hong in Cantonese; Him in Hokkien, Hong or Yoong in Hakka; Hiōng in Gan; Hùng in Vietnamese; and Xyooj in Hmong.

Note that "Hong" and "Hung" may also refer to the unrelated surname 洪.

Distribution

熊 is the 71st most common surname in mainland China.

Although Chinese make up the largest part of America's Asian and Pacific Islander population,^[1] none of the romanizations of 熊 appeared among the 1000 most common surnames during the AD 2000 US census.^[2]

Origins

Xiong's literal meaning is "bear".

In ancient China, it was used as a clan name by a branch of the Mi (芈), the royal family of the state of Chu. As recorded by Sima Qian, they claimed descent from Zhuanxu, a son of the Yellow Emperor in Chinese legend, and Yuxiong (鬻熊), a tutor of the Wen King of Zhou in the 11th century BC. After the victory of the Wu King over the Shang at Muye c. 1046 BC, Yuxiong's descendants supposedly remained prominent at the Zhou court and took the surname Xiong. The Cheng King (r. 1042–1021 BC) then created Xiong Yi, Yuxiong's great-grandson, the viscount of the fief of Chu.^[3] More likely, the clan name is a calque of a non-Sinitic dynasty, with modern scholarship believing the character 芈 was used to transcribe a Kam–Tai word also meaning "bear".^[4]

Eventually rising to the status of kings, the family retained control of Chu until its conquest by Qin during the Warring States Period. Some regained control of later successor states and the surname remains prominent in the provinces formerly comprising the territory of Chu.^{[citation needed]}

List of persons with the surname

References

Look up Xiong or Hsiung in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Citations

Bibliography

Surname list

This page lists people with the surname Xiong.
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.

This page was last edited on 7 April 2024, at 09:39