Zhao
赵 · traditionally 趙 — Zhào
The 8th most common surname in China
Where the name comes from
The clan descends from Zaofu (造父), a charioteer of the Ying (嬴) line and a thirteenth-generation descendant of Bo Yi. He presented King Mu of Zhou with the famous horses Daoli, Hualiu and Lü'er and drove the king west to meet the Queen Mother of the West, then raced him home a thousand li a day to crush the rebellion of King Yan of Xu. For this King Mu granted him the city of Zhao (趙城), and his family took its name. Seven generations later Shu Dai led the clan into the state of Jin, where it eventually founded the state of Zhao.
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 赵.
- ZhaoMandarin — mainland China, Taiwan
- ChiuCantonese
- TiōHokkien (Pe̍h-ōe-jī)
- ChaoMandarin, Wade–Giles spelling
- ZauShanghainese (Wu)
- Jew / TsiuCantonese — older overseas spellings
The character
赵 is used almost only as a name — it carries no everyday meaning of its own.
- Strokes
- 9
- Radical
- 走
- Traditional
- 趙
- As a word
- zhào