Dan (name) explained

Dan
Gender:	Masculine
Language:	English, Hebrew, Hungarian, Romanian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean
Variant:	English: Surname: Dann, Dane Given name: Daniel, Danny Chinese, Korean: Tan

Dan is a name in various cultures. As a given name it is often short for Daniel. It is also a surname with multiple origins.

Given name

See also: List of people named Dan.

Origins as a given name

Dan is an old Scandinavian given name with several disputed origins. The most likely theory is that it originated from the Old Norse ethnonym for Danes. This in turn originated from the Proto-Germanic masculine word *. There are several historical variants including Germanic languages: Halbadaniz "half-Dane", as well as * "Danish" (where the Germanic languages: -iskaz suffix is ancestral to modern English).

The name Dan is also a Hebrew given name, after Dan, the fifth son of Jacob with Bilhah and founder of the Israelite Tribe of Dan.^[1] It is also (along with the variant Danny) a given name or a nickname for people named Daniel or possibly Jordan.

Surname

Origins

As an English surname, Dan is a variant spelling of Dann.^[2] Dann, another variant spelling of which is Dane, is a toponymic surname which originates from the Middle English and Old English, "valley".

The Hebrew surname Dan (Hebrew: דן) is a biblical name which refers to the tribe of Dan. As a given name it first appears in Genesis 30.^[3]

The Hungarian surname Dán is an abbreviation of Dániel.^[4]

Dan may be the spelling of multiple Chinese surnames, based on their pronunciation in different varieties of Chinese; they are listed below by their spelling in Hanyu Pinyin, which reflects the standard Mandarin pronunciation:

• Dān ('red')
• Chén (/Chinese: 陈), spelled Dan based on its Hainanese pronunciation (Hainanese Transliteration Scheme:). This spelling is found for example in Singapore.^{[5] [6]}

There are multiple Japanese surnames which are romanised as Dan, including:^[7]

• , meaning Euonymus hamiltonianus, and also used in the names of various species of other trees, including sandalwoods
• (Kyūjitai:), meaning "group"

There are three separate Korean surnames spelled in the Revised Romanization of Korean as Dan, each written with a different hanja. Bearers of each surname identify with a number of distinct bon-gwan, which are hometowns of clan lineages.^[8]

• The most common, Korean: Cheunggye Dan (; Korean: 층계 단), means "stairs". This character is also used to write the Chinese surname now pronounced Duàn in Mandarin.^[9] Major clans with this surname include:
  • The Gangeum Dan clan ("Gangeum" being the Sino-Korean reading of the name of the city of Jiangyin in Jiangsu, China), who claim descent from, a Ming Dynasty official whose great-great-grandson Dan Hui-sang was dispatched to Korea during the 1592–1598 Japanese invasions of Korea^{[10] [11]}
  • The, who claim descent from Dan Gan-mok, an official under Chungnyeol of Goryeo.^{[12] [13]}
• The second most common, Korean: Hot Dan (; Korean: 홑 단), means "single" or "one". This character is also used to write the Chinese surname now pronounced Shàn in Mandarin.^[14]
• The least common, Korean: Kkeut Dan (; Korean: 끝단), means "end".^[15]

Statistics

In South Korea, the 2000 census found 1,429 people belonging to 437 households with the surname Dan meaning "stairs". There were also 122 people belonging to 40 households with the surname Dan meaning "single", and 34 people belonging to nine households with the surname Dan meaning "end".^[8]

According to statistics cited by Patrick Hanks, there were 284 people on the island of Great Britain and 13 people on the island of Ireland with the surname Dan as of 2011. There had been 177 bearers of the surname in Great Britain in 1881, primarily in Devonshire and Cornwall.

The 2010 United States Census found 2,599 people with the surname Dan, making it the 12,012th-most-common name in the country. This represented an increase from 2,315 (12,317th-most-common) in the 2000 Census. In both censuses, about half of the bearers of the surname identified as White, and one-quarter as Asian.^[16] Dan was the 1,670th-most-common surname among respondents to the 2000 Census who identified as Asian.^[17]

People

Chinese surnames Dān (Chinese: 丹) and Dàn (Chinese: 但)

• Dan Duyu (Chinese: 但杜宇; 1897–1972), Chinese film director
• Judy Dan (Chinese: 但茱迪; born 1930), Chinese-born American actress
• Yang Dan (neuroscientist) (Chinese: 丹扬), Chinese-born American neuroscientist

Japanese surnames Dan (Japanese: 檀, 団)

• Fumi Dan (Japanese: 檀 ふみ; born 1954), Japanese actress
• Jirō Dan (Japanese: 団 時朗), stage name of Hideo Murata (1949–2023), Japanese actor
• Kazuo Dan (Japanese: 檀 一雄; 1912–1976), Japanese novelist and poet
• Mitsu Dan (Japanese: 壇 蜜), stage name of Shizuka Saitō (born 1980), Japanese actress
• Rei Dan (Japanese: 檀 れい), stage name of Mayumi Yamazaki (born 1971), Japanese actress
• Tomoyuki Dan (Japanese: 檀 臣幸; 1963–2013), Japanese actor and voice actor

Romanian

• Alexandru Dan (born 1994), Romanian football midfielder
• Aurora Dan (born 1955), Romanian fencer
• Cristian Florin Dan (born 1979), Romanian football playmaker
• Călin Dan (born 1955), Romanian artist, theorist, and curator
• Dan Petrescu (b. 1967), Romanian football manager and former player
• Dan Petrescu (businessman) (1953–2021), Romanian businessman and billionaire
• Jo Jo Dan (born 1981), Romanian boxer
• Marin Dan (born 1948), Romanian handball player
• Matei-Agathon Dan (1949–2023), Romanian economist and politician
• Nicușor Dan (born 1969), Romanian activist and mathematician
• Pavel Dan (1907–1937), Romanian short story writer
• Sergiu Dan (1903–1976), Romanian novelist

Other

• Aubrey Dan (born 1963), Canadian businesswoman
• Bill Dan, Indonesian-born American sculptor and performance artist
• Fyodor Dan (1871–1947), Russian Marxist revolutionary
• Joseph Dan (1935–2020), Hungarian-born Israeli scholar of Jewish mysticism
• Leslie Dan (born 1929), Hungarian-born Canadian businessman
• Liran Dan, Israeli government official and media executive
• Seaman Dan (Henry Gibson Dan, 1929–2020), Australia-Torres Straits Islander singer
• Theo Dan (born 2000), English rugby union player

See also

• Daniel (disambiguation)
• Danny (disambiguation)

Notes and References

1. Book: What's in a Name? . Jewish Museum of Switzerland . 2022 . 978-3-907262-34-4 . Biel . en, fr, de.
2. Book: Patrick. Hanks. Richard. Coates. Peter. McClure. The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland. Oxford University Press. 2016. 9780192527479. 665.
3. Book: Jewish Family Names and Their Origins. Heinrich Walter. Guggenheimer. Eva H.. Guggenheimer. New York. KTAV Publishing House. 1992. 0881252972. 181.
4. Book: Kálmán, Béla. The World of Names: A Study in Hungarian Onomatology. Akadémiai Kiadó. 1978. 9789630513999. 4664303.
5. Book: https://books.google.com/books?id=AyNYDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA248 . 罗健名 . 新加坡华人姓氏平写法研究 . 罗福腾 . zh:《新加坡华语应用研究新进展》 . Global Publishing . 2012 . 9789813205970 . 248.
6. Book: 梁猷刚 . zh:《海南音字典（普通话对照）》 . 华南师范大学中文系《方音字典》 . 广东人民出版社 . 7218001955 . 1988 . 75. The Hainanese Transliteration Scheme is based on the prestige Wenchang dialect.
7. Web site: Japanese Names (ENAMDICT) . Jim . Breen . Jim Breen . Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group . 2014-04-14 .
8. Web site: 행정구역(구시군)/성씨·본관별 가구 및 인구. Family names by administrative region (district, city, county): separated by bon-gwan, households and individuals. Korean Statistical Information Service. 5 December 2018.
9. Book: https://hanja.dict.naver.com/hanja?q=%E6%AE%B5. 段. Naver Hanja Dictionary. Naver. 8 December 2018.
10. Web site: 연안단씨(延安段氏). Yeonan Dan clan. Academy of Korean Studies. 30 March 2019. 30 March 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190330081858/http://people.aks.ac.kr/front/tabCon/lst/lstView.aks?lstId=LST_049_383_0175. dead.
11. Web site: 강음단씨(江陰段氏). Gangeum Dan Clan. Academy of Korean Studies. 30 March 2019. 30 March 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190330070716/http://people.aks.ac.kr/front/tabCon/lst/lstView.aks?lstId=LST_049_022_0121&category=dirSer. dead.
12. Web site: 강릉단씨(江陵段氏). Gangneung Dan clan. Academy of Korean Studies. 30 March 2019. 30 March 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190330070621/http://people.aks.ac.kr/front/tabCon/lst/lstView.aks?lstId=LST_049_018_0176. dead.
13. Web site: 단(段). Dan. Jokbo Museum. Daejeon. 5 May 2019. none. . The Jokbo Museum cites the following work for their pages on family names: Book: 김진우. ko:한국인 의 역사. The History of Koreans. 春秋筆法 [Chunchu Pilbeop]. 2009. 502157619.
14. Book: https://hanja.dict.naver.com/hanja?q=%E5%96%AE. 單. Naver Hanja Dictionary. Naver. 8 December 2018.
15. Book: https://hanja.dict.naver.com/hanja?q=%E7%AB%AF. 端. Naver Hanja Dictionary. Naver. 8 December 2018.
16. Web site: How common is your last name?. Newsday. 5 September 2018.
17. Web site: Most common last names for Asians and Pacific Islanders in the U.S.. Mongabay. 8 January 2018.