Qin
覃 — Qín
The 92nd most common surname in China
"A 2013 study found it to be the 96th most common surname, shared by 2,400,000 people or 0.180% of the population, with the province-level unit with the most being the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region" (English Wikipedia, citing a 2013 study)
Where the name comes from
Chinese sources give several separate strands. One takes the name from Tanhuai (覃怀), a place name of the Xia period, whose residents took the locality as their clan name; another holds that the bearers were originally the Tan (谭) clan, who altered the character to 覃 to escape persecution. The southern branch is largely a non-Han one: the Qín reading is the one common among the Zhuang people, and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has more bearers than any other province-level unit.
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 覃.
- QinMandarin — mainland China, Taiwan
- ChumCantonese — Hong Kong
- ThamMalaysia
- ThumSingapore — e.g. the historian Thum Ping Tjin, 覃炳鑫
The character
Outside a name, 覃 is an ordinary word meaning to reach, to spread to; deep, extensive.
- Strokes
- 12
- Radical
- 覀
- As a word
- qín
Other surnames read “Qin”
Romanised the same way, but a different character and a different family.