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Kong remains an influential surname
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EDITOR’S note:
Every Chinese family name has its own cultural origin that can be traced back thousands of years. In this column, Shanghai Daily introduces the biggest Chinese family names and their histories.
THE Kong’s family, with the most well-known member being Confucius, was and is still the most influential and respected surname in China. It has kept probably so-far the most complete pedigree book since the clan started, and also provided much of the reference to the study of Chinese culture.
With an estimated population of 2.7 million in China, Kong ranks 83rd — in terms of population — in the list of Chinese surnames.
The number of Kong accounts for about 0.22 percent of the Chinese population.
There are three sources for the families of Kong in China. There were Kong families as early as the Yellow Emperor’s reign. A man named Kong Jia worked as an official historian for the emperor, though no specific records of his offspring has been found.
A much important branch of the Kong family came from the family of Zi — a royal surname of the Shang Dynasty (16th-11th century BC). Several branches of the Zi family chose Kong as their surname for different seasons by the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC).
Confucius, or Kong Zi in Chinese, is an offspring of a particular branch of the kind starting from a man named Kong Fujia.
Just as many other Chinese surnames, there are people shifting their surnames to Kong through history. The population of Kong was joined by many minority people during their interaction with the Hans, such as Tujia, Miao, Mongolia, Hui and Tibetan groups. Yet still, there is a very clear line of the original Kong family development.
Kong family originated in Shangqiu in Henan Province. Some of the descendants fled to the Lu Kingdom in today’s Qufu in Shandong Province to avoid wars. The Kong families thrived in Qufu, and became the origin of most people surnamed Kong in China today. When Confucius and his philosophy thrived in the Han Dynasty, the family of Kong became a distinguished and influential clan in China. By Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), there were Kong families in most regions of China, and their traces were also found in other countries like Korea.
It has been about 2,500 years and more than 80 generations of Kong since Kong Fujia started his clan in Henan Province. Yet interestingly, most of the offspring can still clearly identify their generations just by their names, thanks to the so-far longest, richest and precise pedigree book in China.
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