China's surname history: Hong

China's surname Hong dates back to the surname Gonggong in remote past.

Historical records show that Gonggong was the descendant of Fuyi, a noted courtier under Yao in the remote past. According to Zhengxuan, a historian, Gonggong was the title for a courtier majored in water control. The descendants of Gonggong usually took the surname of Gong, but they altered their surname into "Hong" later to elude their foes.

The surname Hong emerged officially after the imperial Qin (221 BC -206 BC) and Han (206 BC-220 AD) dynasties and, during the Imperial Tang dynasty (618-907), those surnamed another Hong also changed their names into the former Hong to elude the taboo of Prince Li Hong of Emperor Tang Gaozong, with a subsequent drastic rise in its population.

Gonggong was once sent into exile in Youzhou, and his off-springs were therefore chiefly inhabited around Hebei and Liaoning provinces in the early period. With the people surnamed Yu, Zhang and Hong in Jiangxi province, east China, re-surnamed into Hong during the rein of Emperor Tang Minghuang, the area was prestigious for the big family of people surnamed Hong. Consequently, those people surnamed Hong gradually became a large clan in southern China and, on the contrary, the Hong surname became relatively rare in northern China thereafter.

By People's Daily Online