Zhang
张 · traditionally 張 — Zhāng
The 3rd most common surname in China
87.50 million bearers, 6.83% of the general population, in China's National Citizen ID Information System (April 2007); third in the Ministry of Public Security's 2019 National Name Report (CGTN, 21 January 2020). It is the fourth most common surname in Taiwan at 5.26% of the population.
Where the name comes from
The character is a bow (弓) beside 長 "long, wide", and originally meant to open or spread out as an arching bow. The clan legend matches it: the ancestor Hui (揮), a son or grandson of the Yellow Emperor through Qing Yang, was inspired by the Heavenly Bow constellation to invent the bow and arrow and served as gongzheng (弓正), the officer supervising bow-making — from which his descendants took Zhang, settling at Qinghe in modern Hebei. A separate line descends from Xie Zhang (解張), a noble of the state of Jin in the Spring and Autumn period.
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 张.
- ZhangMandarin — mainland China, Taiwan
- CheungCantonese — Hong Kong
- Cheong / ChongHakka; also used in Macau
- Teo / TeohHokkien and Teochew — Singapore, Malaysia
- Tiong / DiongEastern Min — the Philippines
- ChangMandarin, Wade–Giles spelling — Taiwan and older overseas records
- Tjang / Tjiong / TjongDutch-based spellings — Indonesia
The character
Outside a name, 张 is an ordinary word meaning to open up.
- Strokes
- 7
- Radical
- 弓
- Traditional
- 張
- As a word
- zhāng
Words built from 张
The character does ordinary work in the language too. Each of these is a real word you can look up.