Ding is one of the simplest written Chinese family names, written in two strokes.
Distribution
Ding is the 46th most common surname in China. In 2019 it was the 48th most common surname in Mainland China.
Origins
There are four main hypothesised sources of Ding:
The earliest record of this surname in history was the Duke of Ding during the Shang Dynasty.
The name derived from the ancestral surname Jiang. Duke Ding of Qi was the second recorded ruler of the State of Qi. After his death, his descendants adopted his posthumous name Ding as their clan name in his honor.
During the Three Kingdoms period, a general, Sun Kuang of the Wu kingdom, accidentally burnt the food supply and as a punishment, the kingSun Quan ordered this general to change his last name to Ding; the king did not want to bear the same last name as the general.
The hometown of Dings is supposedly northwest of Dingtao, Shandong.
Among the Hui Muslims, the surname Ding is thought to originate from the last syllable of the Arabic honorific "ud-Din" or "al-Din". In particular, descent from Sayyid Ajjal Shams ud-Din, known in Chinese as Saidianchi Shansiding, is attested in the Ding lineage of Chendai, near Quanzhou, Fujian. Although some do not practise Islam, the Ding clan remains as one of the better-known Hui clans around Quanzhou, Fujian that still identify as Muslim. These Hui clans merely require descent form Arab, Persian, or other Muslim forebears, and they need not be Muslim. Due to their historical ancestors' religion, it is considered a taboo offer pork to ancestors of the Ding family; the living Ding family members themselves consume pork nonetheless. One branch of this Ding family descended from Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar resides in Taisi Township, Yunlin County, Taiwan. They trace their descent through him via the Ding family from Quanzhou, Fujian. Although they feigned to be Han Chinese while in Fujian, they practised Islam when they originally arrived in Taiwan in the 1800s, soon thereafter building a mosque. In time, their descendants would convert to Buddhism or Daoist, however, and the mosque built by the Ding family is now a Daoist temple. The Ding family also has branches in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore among the diaspora Chinese communities there but no longer practise Islam; some maintain their Hui identity. A Hui legend in Ningxia links four surnames common in the region — Na, Su, La, and Ding — with the descendants of Shams al-Din's son, Nasruddin, who "divided" their ancestor's name among themselves.
Other Romanizations
Ting, used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Philippines
