An (Chinese surname)

For the related Korean surname, see An (Korean surname).
Ān (安)
Origin
MeaningPeace, tranquility
Region of originPersia to China
Other names
Variant form(s)

The surname Ān is a Chinese surname (Chinese: 安; pinyin: Ān) which literally means "peace", "tranquility", or "Agriculture". It also serves as an abbreviation of Ānxī (安息), meaning "Arsacid" in Chinese and can be romanized as On. Visitors to China who came from Arsacid-held territories often took the name An. In 2008, it was the 110th most common surname in the People's Republic of China, shared by over 1.7 million citizens.[1] The surname is most common in Northern China. It is the 79th name on the Hundred Family Surnames poem.[2]

During the Song dynasty, another Ǎn (俺) was a Jewish Chinese surname descendants Andrew the Apostle.[3][4]

Distribution of the Chinese surname An in territories claimed by the People's Republic of China
  1. ^ "中国最新300大姓排名（2008 [Statistics on the number of citizens with each surname in China, based on records of National Identity Cards]." 2009-01-06. Accessed 20 Jun 2015.(in Chinese)
  2. ^ K. S. Tom. [1989] (1989). Echoes from Old China: Life, Legends and Lore of the Middle Kingdom. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-1285-9.
  3. ^ M. Avrum Ehrlich (Ed.). The Jewish-Chinese Nexus: A Meeting of Civilizations. Routledge, UK, 2008. ISBN 978-0-415-45715-6
  4. ^ Chang, Hsiang Wen (1945), "An Early Chinese Source on the Kaifeng Jewish Community", Folklore Studies, 4: 327–331, doi:10.2307/3182906, JSTOR 3182906