Chinese surname · rank 269
楚
楚 is read as chǔ.
chǔ
Simplified and traditional 楚
name of feudal state; clear
Earth
Time: Western Zhou Xiong Yi enfeoffment layer, Warring-States Chu state and Qin conquest layer in 223 BCE, Spring-and-Autumn place and ancestor-name layers, Song-Yuan figure layer, and Ming Jiangdu official layer
Place: Danyang and Ying/Jiangling in the Chu state tradition; Jing-Chu region; Chu-qiu near Cao County, Shandong, and Hua County, Henan; Lu and Zhao traditions; Luoyang, Kaifeng/Yanjin, Shangqiu, Mengcheng in Anhui, and Yangzhou/Jiangdu later figure contexts
Origin note
is mainly a state-name surname. The strongest line traces to the Mi-surname Chu royal house: Zhou Cheng Wang enfeoffed Xiong Yi, a descendant of Yuxiong, at Danyang with the state name Jing, and the state later moved its center to Ying and became known as Chu. After Qin destroyed Chu in 223 BCE, some descendants and people of the former state used Chu as a surname. A second line is ancestor-name based: sources record a Lu figure Lin Chu, descendant of a branch from Zhou Ping Wang, whose descendants used Chu from the ancestor name. A third layer is place-name based, from Chu-qiu locations in Cao land near todays Cao County in Shandong and in Wei land near todays Hua County in Henan. Later source layers include Chu Long, a retainer in the Zhao Xiangzi tradition, and Korean, Hui, Tujia, Lisu, and other changed-surname branches. These are presented as parallel layers.
Historical figures
Historical figures to enrich
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