Chinese surname · rank 268
师
师 is read as shī.
shī
Simplified 师 · Traditional 師
teacher, master, specialist
Earth
Time: Ancient music-office layer, Spring-and-Autumn Jin musician layer about 2600 years old, Song Sichuan-Henan-Hubei distribution layer, Ming Shanxi-centered distribution layer, and later changed-surname layers; Ancient surname tradition, before 221 BCE; exact calendar year not pinned by the attached sources
Place: Jin-state musical-official context; Zhou and multi-state music-office contexts; later Sichuan, Henan, Hubei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Hebei, Shandong, and Sichuan distribution regions; Mongol and Manchu changed-surname contexts
Origin note
is mainly an office and occupation surname. The core source-backed line comes from music officials: in antiquity and Zhou usage, people who managed music and ritual sound could be called shi, shiyin, or taishi, and descendants of long-serving music officials used the office title as a surname. A more concrete Spring-and-Autumn layer places the surname among descendants of Jin-state musicians, with figures such as Shi Kuang remembered as representative of that professional tradition. Later source layers include people who used Shi because of musical skill or occupation, a Jin-period or Song-Jin-era changed-surname line in which Shi Anshi was originally surnamed Yin and changed to Shi to avoid a taboo, and Qing or later Mongol and Manchu families whose clan names were sinicized as Shi. These are kept parallel rather than collapsed into one founder.
Historical figures
Historical figures to enrich
This surname page is ready for a fame-ranked figure list. Later passes can add generals, poets, rulers, artists, scholars and modern public figures with source links.