GGood Chinese Name

Chinese surname · rank 402

弘

弘 is read as hóng.

Pinyin

hóng

Script forms

Simplified and traditional 弘

Basic meaning

enlarge, expand; liberal, great

Five element

Earth

Origin

Time: Spring and Autumn tradition, 770-476 BCE

Place: Wei state tradition around the Spring and Autumn Central Plains; Taiyuan and Qu a commandery notes; Yuzhang / Nanchang branch noted in Song taboo-change accounts

Origin note

Hong/弘 is treated as an ancestor-name surname. The core account links it to Hong Yan, a Spring and Autumn minister of Wei, with descendants using the first character of his name as a surname. Later history made the surname rarer: Tang and Song taboo-avoidance stories say some Hong families changed to Li or to Hong/洪. The page separates those later name-taboo changes from the older Hong Yan source layer.

Historical figures

Historical figures to enrich

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