Where the name comes from
The Wei descend from Gao, Duke of Bi, a son of King Wen of Zhou, and so from the royal Ji (姬) clan; the family first took its name from the Bi domain. His descendant Bi Wan (畢萬) served as a courtier of Duke Xian of Jin and, after a successful military expedition, was granted the fief of Wei in what is now Ruicheng County, Shanxi — and his line adopted Wei as its surname. In 453 BC the Wei joined the Zhao and Han in destroying the Zhi clan and partitioning Jin, and were recognised as a state by King Weilie of Zhou in 403 BC.
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 魏.
- WeiMandarin — mainland China, Taiwan
- NgaiCantonese
The character
Outside a name, 魏 is an ordinary word meaning Wei state, founded by Cao Cao 曹操, one of the Three Kingdoms from the fall of the Han.
- Strokes
- 17
- Radical
- 鬼
- As a word
- wèi
Other surnames read “Wei”
Romanised the same way, but a different character and a different family.