Shao
邵 — Shào
The 90th most common surname in China
About 2.62 million people in mainland China, 0.20% of the population, most numerous in Shandong (Yuan Yida 袁义达 and Qiu Jiaru 邱家儒, 中国四百大姓, 2013).
Where the name comes from
Shao and Zhao (召) were originally one name. Shao Gong Shi (召公奭), also titled Duke Kang of Shao, was a senior minister at the founding of the Zhou who held the fief of Shao in what is now Shaanxi, and his descendants took it as a surname. The 氏族博考 records the split: "召 and 邵 were one surname in the Spring and Autumn period, later divided into two" — the Runan and Anyang branches being the ones that added the 邑 radical to give 邵.
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 邵.
- ShaoMandarin — mainland China, Taiwan
- Siu / ShiuCantonese — Hong Kong
- SioCantonese — Macau; also Indonesia
- Seow / SiohMin Nan — Malaysia and Singapore
- ShawHong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia
- ZauWu — Shanghai and northern Zhejiang
- ThiệuVietnamese
The character
Outside a name, 邵 is an ordinary word meaning various place names.
- Strokes
- 7
- Radical
- 阝
- As a word
- shào