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Tan (surname)

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This article is about the Chinese surname 譚, which is pronunced as "Tán" in Mandarin Chinese. For another Chinese surname 陳 that is pronunced as "Tân" in Min Nan Chinese, see Chen (surname) .

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Tan (traditional Chinese: 譚; simplified Chinese: 谭) is a Chinese surname. In a 2006 study of the 100 most common Chinese surnames, Tan was found to be the 67^th most common.

1 Origin
2 Romanisation and pronunciation
3 Prominent people
4 Fictional people
5 See also
6 External links

Origin

There are three possible origins of the Tan surname:

The Tan surname came from the ancient Tan State, located in the western part of what is now Shandong Province. At the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty, Zhou founder King Wu gifted the settlement of Tan to Bo Yi (伯益), a descendant of legendary Xia Dynasty founder, King Yu, for helping him conquer Shang. Bo Yi was given the title of Viscount, and the settlement of Tan was upgraded to the Tan State. In 683 BC, during the Spring and Autumn Period, the state of Tan was conquered by Duke Huan of the Qi state. The people of the conquered Tan State then changed their surname to Tan to commemorate their lost country.
The Tan surname came from an ancient ethnic group in southwestern China. According to the Registry of Ten Thousand Surnames (萬姓統譜), the Tan surname was amongst the six surnames of Banan, what is now today's Yunnan Province and Guizhou Province.
The surname 譚 came from the less common surname 談, another surname that is pronounced exactly the same as 譚 in Mandarin and Cantonese. The people from the clan of 談 wanted to avoid their enemies, and so changed their surname to 譚.

Romanisation and pronunciation

Tán is the Chinese character's pinyin romanisation in Mandarin. It is pronounced and romanised differently in different languages and dialects.

In Cantonese, it is romanised as Taam4 in Jyutping and Tàahm in Cantonese Yale. It can also be romanised as Tam.
In Taishanese, it may be romanised as Tom, Thom, Hom or Ham.
In Min Nan, it is romanised as Thâm in POJ.
The surname exists in Vietnamese also, and is spelt as Đàm.