Long
龙 · traditionally 龍 — Lóng
The 81st most common surname in China
Where the name comes from
The character means 'dragon', and Chinese Wikipedia's 龍姓 article traces the surname to dragon-keepers of legend: from the Yulong clan (御龍氏), descendants of the Xia-dynasty dragon-tamer Liu Lei, with clan seats at Wuling and Tianshui; from the Huanlong clan (豢龍氏), the name Shun is said to have granted Dong Fu for rearing dragons; and from Long, a remonstrating official under Shun. It also records that Miao households across Hunan, Guizhou, Chongqing and Hubei were entered on the registers under the surname Long following the Qing 改土歸流 reforms.
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 龙.
- LongMandarin — mainland China, Taiwan
- LungCantonese — Hong Kong
The character
Outside a name, 龙 is an ordinary word meaning dragon.
- Strokes
- 5
- Radical
- 龙
- Traditional
- 龍
- As a word
- lóng
Words built from 龙
The character does ordinary work in the language too. Each of these is a real word you can look up.