Fu
傅 — Fù
The 66th most common surname in China
About 4.5 million bearers, 53rd nationally (Ministry of Public Security ID-card database, 2008 ranking of China's 300 commonest surnames).
Where the name comes from
The classic account, recorded in the Tongzhi genealogical treatise, is that King Wu Ding of Shang dreamed of a sage and then found him in the flesh at Fu Yan (傅岩, in modern Pinglu County, Shanxi) — a slave pounding earth walls, named Yue. Wu Ding made him chief minister, gave him the name of the place, and Fu Yue's descendants kept 傅 as their surname. A separate line is traced through the Ji-clan descendants of the Yellow Emperor, and another to a Lai (賴) family persecuted under King Ling of Chu, which changed its name to 傅 (and to 羅).
The same name, spelled differently
A Chinese surname is a character, not a spelling. The Latin letters on a passport come from whichever dialect the name was written down from — so these are all 傅.
- FuMandarin — mainland China, Taiwan
- FooCantonese — Hong Kong, Malaysia
- PohHokkien — Singapore, Malaysia
- PoChinese-Filipino communities
- PhóVietnamese
- BuKorean 부
The character
Outside a name, 傅 is an ordinary word meaning tutor.
- Strokes
- 12
- Radical
- 亻
- As a word
- fù
Words built from 傅
The character does ordinary work in the language too. Each of these is a real word you can look up.