Hè (surname) explained

Hè (; IPA:)), also romanized as Ho, is a Chinese surname that is 71st in the list of the top 100 most common Chinese family names. The Chinese character means "celebrate" or "congratulate." According to a 2013 study, He was the 86th most common surname, shared by 2,740,000 people or 0.210% of the population, with the province with the most people being Hunan.^[1] It is the 70th name on the Hundred Family Surnames poem.^[2]

Origin

The surname originated as a semantic variant of Qing, which can be traced back to Qing Feng, the great-grandson of Duke Huan of Qi. In the Eastern Han dynasty, a well-known official and descendant of the Qing family, Qing Chun, changed his surname to He, which has the same meaning as Qing, because his surname Qing happened to be the given name of Liu Qing, the father of the Emperor An of Han, in order to avoid a naming taboo.^[3]

Another origin was a shortened form of disyllabic surnames such as He Lan, He Lai, He Dun, which were from the Xianbei ethnic group, shortened to He through cultural fusion with the Han people during Northern and Southern dynasties.

Notable people

• He Jingzhi (; born 1924), politician and poet
• He Bingyan (; 1913–1960) was a general in the People's Liberation Army
• He Mengfu (; 1911–1945) a Chinese film and theatre director from Wujin, Jiangsu
• He Jiankui, Chinese scientist known for the Lulu and Nana gene editing controversy
• He Zhizhang, Tang Dynasty poet
• He Long, Chinese military leader and one of the Ten Marshals of the People's Republic of China
• He Zizhen third wife of Mao Zedong from May 1930 to 1937
• He Guoqiang retired senior leader of the Chinese Communist Party
• He Weifang, professor at Peking University
• Mike He, Taiwanese actor
• Anna Mae He (; born 1999), an American child who was the subject of a custody battle between her Chinese biological parents and American adopted parents
• He Guan (; born 1993 in Tai'an) is a Chinese football player
• He Ying (revolutionary), originally He Mingying (born 1886), was a Chinese revolutionary born in Sangzhi County, Hunan province
• , notable Kuomingtang general that also served as Ministry of Transportation in Taiwan
• He Junlin, Chinese singer, member of Teens in Times

Notes and References

1. 中国四百大姓, 袁义达, 邱家儒, Beijing Book Co. Inc., 1 January 2013
2. Book: K. S. Tom . Echoes from Old China: Life, Legends and Lore of the Middle Kingdom. . University of Hawaii Press . 1989 . 0-8248-1285-9.
3. The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland