Wong (surname)

For other uses, see Wong (disambiguation).
Wong
Family name
Region of origin China, Bianjing, Hainan and Hong Kong
Related names Vong, Huang, Wang, Heng

Wong is the Jyutping and Yale and Hong Kong romanization of the Chinese surnames and Huang (simplified Chinese: 黄; traditional Chinese: 黃) and Wang (Chinese: 王), two ubiquitous Chinese surnames; Wang (Chinese: 汪), another common Chinese surname; and a host of other rare Chinese surnames, including Heng (simplified Chinese: 横; traditional Chinese: 橫), Hong (Chinese: 弘), Hong (simplified Chinese: 闳; traditional Chinese: 閎), and Hong (Chinese: 宏)

Note that, while 汪 could be distinguished by its tone, 黃 (Wong/Huang) and 王 (Wong/Wang) are homophones in Cantonese. To differentiate the two in conversation, 黃 (Wong/Huang) is customarily referred to by native Cantonese speakers as 黃河的黃 (Yellow River Wong), 黃金的黃 (yellow gold Wong), "big belly Wong" (as the character resembles a person with a big belly), or by native Mandarin speakers as "grass-head Wong" (due to its first radical), whereas the 王 (Wong/Wang) is referred as the "three-stroke Wong" (due to its prominent 3 horizontal strokes) or the 'King' Wong (due to its meaning).

Distribution

Within China, Taiwan names are written using Chinese characters and are currently romanized using the Hanyu Pinyin but previously Wade-Giles was used and many people retain names as such. In Hong Kong and Macau and among the Chinese diaspora abroad, though, many choose to romanize their name according to their regional pronunciation.

Thus, while there is no official tally of "Wongs" inside China or Taiwan, Wong is the 6th most common Chinese name in Singapore, the 3rd most common Chinese name in America, and the most common Chinese name in Ontario, Canada.

Although recent immigration from central and northern China has caused the pinyin romanizations "Wang" and "Huang" to become more common, "Wong" is still by far the most common version in all three locations, just as "Lee" remains more common than "Li".

Origins

The history of the romanization "Wong" begins Bianjing (汴京) during the Song dynasty (a noticeable empress Empress Wang (Taizu). Some historical information showed that the name can be traced back to 206 BC–220 AD Han dynasty.

The romanisation "Wong" is also linked with mainland Chinese "Wang (surname)" which has a historical name from Zi in Shang dynasty .

The name is now widely used in Hong Kong and some of the commonwealth countries. Many migrants moved to plan countries, south-east Asia, Europe, Canada, Australia and the United States.

Wong is also a rare English surname derived Old English "Geong" meaning young. However, Young is the more common surname from this origin.

List of persons with the surname

黃/黄

王

汪

翁

Further information: Weng (surname)

Pinyin: wēng, wěng (weng1, weng3); Jyutping: jung1; Min Nan POJ: ang

Unknown

See also

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