Yan
严 · traditionally 嚴 — Yán
The 96th most common surname in China
"In 2008, the surname 严 (嚴), pinyin Yán, or Yim in Cantonese was estimated to be the 92nd most common surname in the People's Republic of China, shared by around 2.2 million citizens" (English Wikipedia)
Where the name comes from
This is a clan that was forced to change its name. The Zhuang (莊) family adopted Yan (嚴) on the accession of Emperor Ming of Han, whose personal name was Liu Zhuang, because the naming taboo forbade commoners from using a character in the reigning emperor's name. The two characters carry related senses of solemnity and gravity, so the substitution preserved the name's meaning while removing the offending graph.
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 严.
- YanMandarin — mainland China, Taiwan
- YimCantonese — Hong Kong
- NgiamSingapore — e.g. the civil servant Ngiam Tong Dow, 严崇涛
The character
Outside a name, 严 is an ordinary word meaning tight (closely sealed).
- Strokes
- 7
- Radical
- 一
- Traditional
- 嚴
- As a word
- yán
Words built from 严
The character does ordinary work in the language too. Each of these is a real word you can look up.
Other surnames read “Yan”
Romanised the same way, but a different character and a different family.