Chang (surname)


Chang is the pinyin romanization of the Chinese surname . It was listed 80th among the Song-era Hundred Family Surnames.
"Chang" is also the Wade-Giles romanization of two Chinese surnames written Zhang in pinyin: one extremely common and written in traditional characters and in simplified characters, and another quite rare and written as in both systems. There is also a rare case of in Hong Kong written as Chang as well. For full details on them, see the "Zhang" and "Zheng" article. In Macao, this is the spelling of the surname "Zeng". "Chang" is also a common spelling of the surname / in Peru.
It is also another Romanization of the Korean surname Jang.

Romanization

常 is romanized as Ch'ang in Wade-Giles, although the apostrophe is often omitted in practice. It is romanized as Soeng and Sheung in Cantonese; Seong and Siông in Minnan languages; and Sioh in Teochew. It is occasionally romanized Sōng and Thōng as well.
It is the source of the Vietnamese surname Thường. The Korean surname romanized as Sang. In Japanese, it is romanized as Jō.

Distribution

常 was unlisted among the most recent rankings of the 100 most common Chinese surnames in mainland China and on Taiwan based on household registrations in 2007, although the Ministry of Public Security in 2008 listed is as the 87th most common surname in China based on its database of National Identity Cards, shared by at least 2.4 million Chinese citizens. It was the 94th-most-common surname during the 1982 Chinese census.
张 is the third-most-common surname in mainland China, making up 6.83% of the population of the People's Republic of China, although there it is official rendered into the Latin alphabet as Zhang. Its Traditional Chinese variant 張 is the fourth-most-common surname in Taiwan, making up 5.26% of the population of the Republic of China.
"Chang" is a common Chinese surname in the United States, ranked 687th among all surnames during the 1990 census and 424th during the year 2000 census. It was ranked 11th among all surnames held by Asians and Pacific Islanders and 6th among all surnames held by Chinese Americans in 2000, well ahead of the pinyin variant "Zhang".
"Chang" is a common surname in Peru, where it was adopted by Cantonese immigrants as a variant spelling of Chen.

Origin

The pronunciation of Chang in Old Chinese has been reconstructed as *daŋ. Its original meaning was "constant" or "often". By the time of Middle Chinese, the pronunciation had shifted to Dzyang.

Notable Changs

; 張 and 张
; 陳 and 陈
; 常
; 章
; Other/unknown
; Fictional characters