Xie
谢 · traditionally 謝 — Xiè
The 23rd most common surname in China
More than 10 million people worldwide; 23rd most common surname in mainland China and 0.79% of the population (2013 and 2019 studies, per English Wikipedia), and 13th most common in Taiwan (2016).
Where the name comes from
Two documented lines converge on the same name. The older, recorded in Chinese sources such as the Shiben, runs through the Ren-surnamed state of Xie, held to descend from the Yellow Emperor. The other dates to the end of the Western Zhou and is the ancestry most Xie today claim: King Xuan granted the former territory of Xie to his maternal uncle Shen Bo (申伯); Shen Bo's descendants took the name of the fief, and Kaifeng in Henan is counted the clan's ancestral home.
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 谢.
- XieMandarin — mainland China, Taiwan
- Tse / TzeCantonese — Hong Kong
- CheahHokkien — Malaysia
- ChiaHokkien and Teochew — Singapore and Malaysia
- SiaHokkien
- ChaHakka
- SeseChinese Filipino
The character
Outside a name, 谢 is an ordinary word meaning to thank.
- Strokes
- 12
- Radical
- 讠
- Traditional
- 謝
- As a word
- xiè
Words built from 谢
The character does ordinary work in the language too. Each of these is a real word you can look up.