Chinese surname · rank 326
廉
廉 is read as lián.
lián
Simplified and traditional 廉
upright, honorable, honest
Earth
Time: remote Dalian ancestor-name tradition preserved in later surname books, Warring States Lian Po attestation, Han-Song bearers in surname summaries, Yuan Uyghur Lianfangshi changed-surname branch, and modern population-distribution evidence; Warring States tradition, 475-221 BCE
Place: Hedong, roughly the Yellow River east region of present-day Shanxi, in surname-book tradition; Zhao state context for Lian Po; Yuan central-government official-title context for the Uyghur branch; modern concentrations in Shanxi, Shandong, Henan, Hebei, Liaoning, Jilin, Beijing, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Inner Mongolia, Hunan and other provinces
Origin note
Lian is read lian as a surname. Its main origin is a transmitted surname-book tradition: later surname books derive Lian from Dalian, described as a descendant of Zhuanxu and part of the Ying-surname clan complex, with descendants taking the ancestor name as the surname. That tradition is old and widely repeated, but this page names it as surname-book tradition rather than treating the remote genealogy as directly provable. The historical record is anchored by early bearers such as the Warring States Zhao general Lian Po, and later Han and Song people in surname summaries. A distinct later branch comes from Yuan-period Uyghur history: sources say Buluhaiya, connected with the suzheng lianfangshi office, used Lian as a Han-style surname for his family, producing the Lian Xixian line. Modern Lian distribution is concentrated in northern and central provinces, with 23mofang sample concentrations in Shanxi, Shandong and Henan.
Historical figures
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