Chinese surname · rank 334
羊
羊 is read as yáng.
yáng
Simplified and traditional 羊
sheep, goat; Kangxi radical 123
Earth
Time: Zhou Yangren office-title tradition, Spring and Autumn Jin Yangshe fief-name tradition, late Spring and Autumn simplification to Yang, Qin-Han move to Taishan, Western Han Lingling branch, Song Zhejiang distribution, and Ming Guangdong-centered distribution; Spring and Autumn tradition, 770-476 BCE
Place: Yangshe in Jin territory, with later summaries placing it in Shanxi contexts such as Hongdong or Qinxian; Taishan in Shandong for the major Han-Jin Yang lineage; Lingling in present-day Hunan/Guangxi border region for the southern branch; Song Zhejiang distribution; Ming Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Jiangxi distribution; Jingzhao as a later prestige locality
Origin note
Yang is read yang as a surname. It is not simply an animal-word surname. One source is official-title based: Zhou had an office called yangren, and descendants used the office name as a surname. The best-known lineage layer comes from the Jin compound surname Yangshe. Sources say a descendant of Jin Wu Gong's line, Tu, became dafu of Yangshe; descendants used Yangshe as a compound surname, and in the late Spring and Autumn period some shortened Yangshe to Yang. During the Qin-Han transition, a Yang line moved east to Taishan, where the Taishan Yang family later became a major learned and official lineage. A third branch is southern and ethnic: Western Han Lingling southern people also had Yang, and 23mofang treats much of the southern Yang surname as from that branch. This page keeps these layers separate: Zhou office, Jin Yangshe simplification, Taishan lineage, and Lingling southern branch.
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.