Where the name comes from
The surname comes from the state of Xue, in what is now Shandong. Yu the Great bestowed on his minister Xi Zhong the title Marquis of Xue in gratitude for his invention of the Chinese chariot, and Xi Zhong's descendants took Xue as their clan name. Several non-Han peoples later adopted it on sinicisation, including the Turkic Xueyantuo tribe of the Tiele, the Xianbei Chigan clan, and a number of Manchu clans; Chinese Wikipedia adds the Northern Wei compound surname Chiqian (叱乾氏), changed to Xue under Emperor Xiaowen's sinicisation policy.
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 薛.
- XueMandarin — mainland China, Taiwan
- SitCantonese — Hong Kong, Macau; e.g. the actresses Nancy Sit (薛家燕) and Fiona Sit
- SihHokkien and Teochew — Singapore, Malaysia
- SiekHokkien and Teochew — Indonesia and the Netherlands
- HsüehWade-Giles, Taiwan
The character
Outside a name, 薛 is an ordinary word meaning wormwood, marsh grass; a feudal state.
- Strokes
- 16
- Radical
- 艹
- As a word
- xuē