Where the name comes from
Chen Wan (陳完), a prince of the state of Chen, fled to Qi to escape persecution at home; Duke Huan of Qi took him in and granted him an estate called Tian, whose name he adopted — 陳 and 田 sounded alike in Old Chinese. His descendants grew powerful enough to displace the ruling house of Qi altogether, the episode known as 田氏代齊, "the Tian replace the Qi". A separate tradition traces the name to the Shang-dynasty office of the official in charge of farmland; the character itself means "field".
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 田.
- TianMandarin — mainland China, Taiwan
- TinCantonese — Hong Kong
- TiânHokkien (Pe̍h-ōe-jī)
- ĐiềnVietnamese
- T'ienWade–Giles — Taiwan
The character
Outside a name, 田 is an ordinary word meaning field.
- Strokes
- 5
- Radical
- 田
- As a word
- tián
Words built from 田
The character does ordinary work in the language too. Each of these is a real word you can look up.