Fang
方 — Fāng
The 67th most common surname in China
About 4.1 million bearers, 63rd nationally (Ministry of Public Security ID-card database, 2008 ranking of China's 300 commonest surnames); 67th on the Ministry's 2019 top-100 ranking, published January 2020.
Where the name comes from
One line begins with Yu Lei, a descendant of the Yellow Emperor, who was awarded the land of Fang for his part in defeating a hostile tribe and was thereafter known as Fang Lei; his descendants kept the fief's name. The other begins with Ji Yuan, a general under King Xuan of Zhou whose style name was Fang Shu (方叔) — the king granted his family the surname Fang from it.
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 方.
- FangMandarin — mainland China, Taiwan
- FongCantonese — Hong Kong, Malaysia
- PngTeochew and Hokkien — Singapore
- PungTeochew
- Hongsome Min Nan varieties
The character
Outside a name, 方 is an ordinary word meaning square.
- Strokes
- 4
- Radical
- 方
- As a word
- fāng
Words built from 方
The character does ordinary work in the language too. Each of these is a real word you can look up.