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Tracing the Pan family lineage
IT is estimated that there are about 6.2 million people surnamed Pan in China, making it the 36th most common name in the country.
Pan as a surname can be traced back to the family of Yao, descendents of the Emperor Shun in antediluvian China, the family of Ji who reined in the Zhou Dynasty (11th century-221 BC) and the family of Mi, part of the royal family of Chu Kingdom in the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC). Some of Emperor Shun’s descendant surnamed themselves after the capital Pan in today’s Beijing. Bo Ji, an offspring of the royal family of Zhou surnamed his family after his granted land, Pan City, in today’s Shaanxi Province. A branch of the Mi family changed their surname into Pan after one of their ancestors who was granted high position in the Chu Kingdom.
The Pan family is thought to have originated primarily in Hubei Province during the Spring and Autumn Period, with some of them migrating to Shandong and Hunan provinces later. By the Three Kingdoms Period (AD 220-280), the Pans were found in many parts of China, and were a prominent clan in today’s Xingyang County of Henan Province.
One of the most well-known figures of the Pan family is Pan An, whose name has become a byword for handsomeness. He was a litterateur originally named Pan Yue in the Jin Dynasty (AD 265-420), but became known by the name of Pan An after poet Du Fu in Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) referred to him this way in a poem.
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