Yang
杨 · traditionally 楊 — Yáng
The 6th most common surname in China
Where the name comes from
The character is 木 "tree" beside the phonetic 昜, and names the aspen or willow. The surname comes from the state of Yang (楊國) in what is now Hongtong County, Shanxi, a fief of the Zhou royal Ji (姬) clan — Chinese sources date the first enfeoffment of a Marquis of Yang to the sixth year of King Kang of Zhou. The dominant line runs through Boqiao, a son of Duke Wu of Jin, and the Jin ministerial house of Yangshe (羊舌, literally "sheep's tongue"); when that house was destroyed in the Luan Ying affair, survivors fled to Huayin and kept Yang, the name of their ancestral fief.
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 杨.
- YangMandarin — mainland China, Taiwan
- YeungCantonese — Hong Kong
- IeongCantonese
- Yeo / YeohHokkien and Teochew
- Yong / JongHakka
- Njoo / NyooHokkien
- YoungCantonese — anglicised overseas spelling
The character
Outside a name, 杨 is an ordinary word meaning willow, poplar, aspen.
- Strokes
- 7
- Radical
- 木
- Traditional
- 楊
- As a word
- yáng
Words built from 杨
The character does ordinary work in the language too. Each of these is a real word you can look up.