Tseng (曾)
A Taiwanese surname.
曾 Tseng
- Zhuyin
- ㄗㄥ
- Pinyin
- zēng
- Wade-Giles
- Tseng
- Further spellings of 曾
- Tzeng, Zeng
- Taiwanese Hokkien (Tâi-lô)
- Tsan Tsan is the colloquial (白讀) reading, while tsing is the character's literary (文讀) reading.
- Hakka (Sixian)
- zen²⁴
- Rank in Taiwan
- 17th most common surname, roughly 1.45% of the population (2023 Ministry of the Interior figures)
What the character means
Read zēng, it is the 'great-' of kinship terms (曾祖 'great-grandfather'); read céng, it means 'once, ever' (as in 曾經).
Where the surname comes from
Tradition traces it to the state of Zeng (鄫) in present-day Shandong, granted by the Xia king Shaokang to his son Qulie (曲烈). After Ju destroyed Zeng in 567 BCE, its crown prince fled to Lu, and his descendants dropped the 阝 radical and wrote 曾. Hall name (堂號): 魯國堂.
Saying it 我姓曾 — wǒ xìng zēng (ㄨㄛˇ ㄒㄧㄥˋ ㄗㄥ), "my family name is 曾"
Sources: rank and share, 內政部 全國姓名統計分析 (Ministry of the Interior, National Name Statistics), data as of 2023-06-30. Taiwanese Hokkien readings, 教育部臺灣台語常用詞辭典 (MOE Dictionary of Frequently-Used Taiwanese Taigi), 百家姓 appendix. Hakka, 教育部臺灣客語辭典 (MOE Dictionary of Taiwan Hakka), 百家姓表, Sixian (四縣腔).