The Chinese surname has a long history, and its history can be traced back to the matriarchal clan society in ancient times. Therefore, the early surnames in our country are more or less related to female characters. For example, the eight surnames of Ji, Ji, Jiang, 嬴, 妘, 妫, 姚, and 妊 were all surnames handed down from the matrilineal clan in those years.
Later, after thousands of years of development and evolution, these ancient surnames derived from today's various surnames. There are 5662 records in ancient documents alone.
It contains 3484 single surnames, 2032 compound surnames, and 146 three-character surnames. Although from the quantitative point of view, the number of single surnames is not much more than the number of compound surnames, but in real life, the number of compound surnames is much less than that of single surnames. In addition, most of the compound surnames have quite ancient rhymes and are very pleasant, such as Shangguan, Sima and Murong. Therefore, the compound surname always gives others the illusion of an ancient nobility.
As for the origin of the compound surname, it is also more or less related to the nobility. Different from the single surname, most of the compound surnames are derived from ancient official names, the more famous ones are Sima ( 司空 , Situ , Taishi , Wuma , Lezheng , etc. The long history has undoubtedly left a layer of elegant and luxurious marks on the compound surname.
However, after entering the modern era, there is no such thing as class aristocracy. Compared with the single surname, the compound surname has no advantage in use except for good sound. Therefore, many compound surnames have now been changed to single surnames, such as Ouyang, which has been changed to Ou or Yang, and Shangguan has become an official. This is also the reason why although there are many types of compound surnames, there are few people today.
Among the many disappearing compound surnames, one sounds extremely domineering. This compound surname is Tumen, and I believe that few people have heard of this surname. It is also rarely recorded in history. It is only mentioned in the "Book of Han and The Biography of Wang Mang", that is, "Duling County People Tumen Shao", which means that in this place in Duling County, there is a person named Tumen Shao.
At first glance, this domineering butcher surname still has a bit of a butcher's feeling. And its origin is indeed related to the butcher, which is the special surname of some families that have killed pigs for generations in ancient times. Although this surname is quite domineering, it sounds very brutal, especially the meaning of slaughtering the door and destroying the door, which is very unlucky. Therefore, the descendants of the Tumen surname gradually changed the surname to the Tu surname, and now the Tumen surname has completely disappeared in China.
Although Tumen disappeared, it was still changed to the Tu surname. Nowadays, the surname Tu is a minority surname in China, accounting for only 0.015% of the total han population. And some of these Tu clans evolved from other surnames. The descendants of the real Tumen family are far less than the percentage of 0.015.
Although the number is small, the butchers are still talented. For example, Tu Honggang, a famous modern pop singer, and Tu Youyou, the first person to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine in China a few years ago, are all descendants of Tu's family.
In today's gradual singularization of compound surnames, it is increasingly difficult for us to find traces of compound surnames. Although the development trend of surnames is bound to be in the direction of more convenient and efficient, the disappearance of these once noble or domineering compound surnames will always make people feel sorry.
They are all different from the ancient traditional cultures that have been lost in our country, and they will eventually drift away from modern society, but as long as they touch the aftertaste, they will always give birth to a kind of pride that belongs to the Chinese from the bottom of their hearts.