Meng (surname)

Mèng
Origin
MeaningFirst-born

Meng (Chinese: ; pinyin: Mèng; Wade–Giles: Meng) is a Chinese surname. Meng is a shi surname or clan name (氏), as opposed to the xing (姓) category of surname, ancestral name. Meng is of the type of surname which was a member of the list of names denoting seniority within a certain family: in ancient usage, the characters of meng (孟), zhong (仲), shu (叔) and ji (季) were used to denote the first, second, third and fourth eldest sons in a family. These were sometimes adopted as surnames. Of these, Meng is the best known, being the surname of the philosopher Mencius. It is the 94th name on the Hundred Family Surnames poem.[1]

  1. ^ 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.