Meng
孟 — Mèng
The 71st most common surname in China
About 3.3 million bearers, 73rd nationally (Ministry of Public Security ID-card database, 2008); Chinese Wikipedia reports the same 3.3 million and 73rd place from the Ministry's ID database in 2009. 71st on the Ministry's 2019 top-100 ranking, published January 2020.
Where the name comes from
孟 is a clan name (shi 氏) rather than an ancient ancestral name, and it comes from birth order: in the old series meng–zhong–shu–ji (孟仲叔季) for ranking sons, meng marks the eldest. The principal line descends from Qingfu, eldest of the sons of Duke Huan of Lu born outside the main line; because he was the senior of them, his descendants were styled Mengsun (孟孙氏), later shortened to Meng. A second Meng line arose in Wey from Meng Zhi (孟絷), elder brother of Duke Ling.
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 孟.
- MengMandarin — mainland China, Taiwan
- MangCantonese — Hong Kong
- MaengKorean 맹
- MạnhVietnamese
The character
Outside a name, 孟 is an ordinary word meaning first in a series; great, eminent.
- Strokes
- 8
- Radical
- 子
- As a word
- mèng