Chinese surname · rank 222
车
车 is read as chē.
chē
Simplified 车 · Traditional 車
vehicle, carriage, wheeled tool; to turn or machine
Earth
Time: Ancient Chequ and office-name traditions; Spring and Autumn Qin Ziche layer; Western Han Tian Qianqiu layer; Northern Wei and later ethnic-adoption layers; Xia-dynasty tradition, c. 2070-1600 BCE
Place: Qin region and Changling/Xianyang for major Han-line traditions; Cheshi/Yanqi in today's Xinjiang and Dai commandery for later western and Xianbei layers
Origin note
车 is presented in surname references as a multi-source surname rather than a single-founder line. One layer connects it with vehicle-related offices such as 车正 and 车府令; another follows the Western Han story of Tian Qianqiu, who was allowed to ride a small carriage into court and was called 'Che chancellor', after which descendants used Che as a surname. A Qin-state layer derives from the compound surname 子车, remembered through the Ziche figures in the Classic of Poetry tradition. Later layers include people of the western Cheshi state taking the state name as a surname and Northern Wei Xianbei Chefei or related clans changing to Che during sinicization.
Historical figures
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