Mao
毛 — Máo
The 86th most common surname in China
About 2.64 million people in mainland China, 0.20% of the population, most numerous in Zhejiang — not Hunan (Yuan Yida 袁义达 and Qiu Jiaru 邱家儒, 中国四百大姓, 2013).
Where the name comes from
The surname comes out of the Zhou royal Ji (姬) clan. Mao Shu Zheng (毛叔鄭), a son of King Wen of Zhou and younger brother of King Wu, was enfeoffed with the state of Mao at the founding of the dynasty; when the state was later absorbed, his descendants kept its name. Other Mao families arrived by imperial grant rather than descent — the Ming court bestowed the surname on the Hui general Mao Zhong (毛忠) in 1445, and on the Mongol commander Mao Sheng (毛勝).
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 毛.
- MaoMandarin — mainland China, Taiwan
- MoCantonese — Hong Kong
- MouCantonese — Macau
- Moh / MorMin Nan — Malaysia and Singapore
The character
Outside a name, 毛 is an ordinary word meaning hair.
- Strokes
- 4
- Radical
- 毛
- As a word
- máo
Words built from 毛
The character does ordinary work in the language too. Each of these is a real word you can look up.