Li's surname ranks fourth among hundreds of surnames.
In 2007, it was the second most populous surname in mainland China.
However, according to the "National Citizenship Information System" of the household registration management department, Li is the third surname.
In North Korea and Vietnam, Li is also a common surname, and Li is the second largest surname in North Korea.
In order to distinguish it from homonyms, Li often calls it "eighteen sons of Li" or "".
According to a paper on surnames published by China historians in Oriental Magazine 1977, Li is one of the top ten Chinese surnames in the world.
According to statistics, the total population of Li nationality is 654.38+0 billion, of which 92.074 million are Li nationality, accounting for 7. 1.9% of the total population in China.
Henan Province is the largest province with Li surname in China.
The first source: from the won surname.
It is an official name, which originated from the won surname, or from Li Zheng, a descendant of Emperor Liewen of Zhuan Xu after Hao Tao, or from Laozi Li Er, the founder of Taoism in the Zhou Dynasty.
During Yao's reign, he was appointed as Dali Kingdom (prison), his son Bo Yi was yuanshi county, and his son Sun San inherited Dali Kingdom. According to the custom at that time, their descendants took Guan as their surname and called Li.
There are two versions of Shi Li's change:
There is a saying: In the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, Li Zheng, a descendant of Hao Tao, was an official in North Korea. He offended Shang Zhouwang by telling her and was executed. When his wife Qihe fled with her son Li Zhen, she survived by eating plums. She dared not say Li, so she changed her surname to Li.
Another way of saying it is: According to historical records, there was no Li before the Zhou Dynasty. Because there is an old man named Li, his name is Er, and he is a descendant of Li Zhen, so Li is also called Li, because his ancestor is Li Guanren, and he has the same ancient sound as Li.
Apparently, Li began to call himself by his surname in Li Er.
At the end of Shang Dynasty, Zhou Wang was overbearing and indulged in womanhood, which was deeply hated by the rulers and people.
Li Zheng, the descendant of Hao Tao, out of loyalty, bluntly pointed out Zhou Wang's mistakes and suggested that he correct them. As a result, he angered Zhou Wang and was killed.
After hearing the news, Li Zheng's wife Qihe fled with her youngest son, Li Zhen.
Qihe's family was originally from Chen State (now Huaiyang, Henan Province), and wanted to escape back to her family, but she was afraid of bringing trouble to her family, so she fled to the west of Henan Province.
When we arrived at Houyi Market in yi river Valley in western Henan, mother and son were already hungry and exhausted, especially Xiao Lizhen, who was starving.
However, this area is deserted, how can we find food? Fortunately, Qi Heshi found some "Mu Zi" in a nearby tree, so they picked them and ate them.
In this way, mother and son saved their lives by eating wild fruits.
Then, they went to eastern Henan and settled in Guxian (now east of Lu Yi, Henan Province), which is not too far from Huaiyang.
He Zizhen began to change Li's name to Li's in order to be grateful for saving his life, to avoid the pursuit, and because Li and he are common.
The second source: his family changed his surname.
Originated from changing the surname, belonging to the surname given by the emperor.
During the Three Kingdoms period, Zhuge Liang, the prime minister of Shu and Han Dynasties, gave local ethnic minorities surnames such as Zhao, Zhang, Yang and Li.
After Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty moved to Luoyang, the Xianbei people adopted a comprehensive sinicization policy and changed their Chinese characters to Li.
* * * There are many surnames given by emperors in past dynasties, such as Li, Da, A, Zhang, Bai, Mu, Shan, Zheng, Zhu and Jin.
* * * Li is one of the few Persians and * * * people who came to settle in China in the 7th century; /kloc-After the third century, some Central Asians, Persians and * * * people moved to China, and in the process of getting along with the Han people, they formed * * * people, * * * people and Mongols, also known as "* * *".
* * * is widely distributed, mainly mixed with Han nationality, and distributed in northwest China and Henan, Hebei, Shandong, Yunnan, Anhui, Liaoning, Beijing and other provinces and cities, with about 7.3 million people.
Li has a high proportion in * * * *, and some of them come directly from ancient Persia or * * *, such as Li Xun, a poet of Shu Kingdom five generations ago, whose ancestors were Persians, and lived in Zizhou (now Santai, Sichuan) after coming to China.
The third source: he changed his surname to Li.
Originated from the change of surnames of all ethnic groups, it belongs to sinicization and changed its surname into surname.
(1) Miao nationality
Miao people live in the south, more than half in Guizhou, and the rest are distributed in Hunan, Yunnan, Guangxi, Sichuan, Guangdong, Hubei and other provinces. They live with other brothers, with a population of about 5 10/00000.
Li occupies a certain proportion among Miao people, and is one of the most popular surnames among Miao people in Weining area of western Guizhou.
China people's surname is Li and Miao people's surname is Meng Enlu, which is a special way for them to implement the "father-son joint system".
Some Miao people are the products of national integration, and some have nothing to do with the original meaning of Miao people.
For example, in the Miao Uprising in Guizhou led by Xianfeng and Tongzhi in Qing Dynasty, there was an insurgent general named Li Hongji, but his surname was not Li, and Li was the wrong spelling of his Miao name Zhun, which means "buffalo" in Miao language and "Acer" means "corner", so "Li Hongji" is.
According to relevant scholars' research, when the Qing government registered the household registration, it changed the Miao surname of the male head of household into the Han surname with the same pronunciation, thus forming the surname of Han Miao.
This is how some Li people of Miao nationality were formed.
(2) Zhuang nationality
Zhuang nationality developed from a branch of Baiyue in ancient times, and is the most populous minority in China, with about13.4 million people, of whom more than 90% live in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and a few live in Yunnan, Guangdong and other provinces.
Li is a large number of Zhuang people, and has produced some influential figures, such as Li and Li Jingui, famous generals of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, all of whom are Zhuang people.
(3) Yao nationality
Yao nationality mainly developed from a part of the ancient "Changsha Wu Lingren".
There are about1450,000 people, distributed in the mountainous areas of Guangxi, Hunan, Yunnan, Guangdong and Guizhou provinces, among which the number of Yao people in Guangxi accounts for more than 70% of the total number.
Li is one of the main surnames of Yao nationality, ranking fifth among the original twelve surnames of Yao nationality.
According to blood relationship, Yao Li has several sets of "houses"; Every room has a title, and the titles of generations are "Looking Forward", "Bobby" and "Nine Valley".
Li Yao has the spirit of resisting feudal oppression. In the Qing Dynasty, there were Li Ying, the leader of eight schools of Yao nationality in Guangdong, and Li Yuanfa, the leader of Yao uprising in Hunan.
(4) Bai nationality
Bai people call themselves "Bai Zi" and "Baini", mainly living in Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, and scattered in Bijiang, Yuanjiang, Kunming, Zhaotong, Bijie and other places in Guizhou Province. 1982 population is about1300,000.
Du You, a historian in the Tang Dynasty, was an envoy of Lingnan and was familiar with the situation of southern minorities. The General Code he wrote recorded the surname of the Bai nationality: "There are dozens of tribes ... there are dozens of surnames in the land, with Yang, Li, Zhao and Dong as celebrities, each depending on mountains and rivers and not subordinate to each other." It can be seen that Li is the most popular surname among the Bai people, with a history of at least 1000 years.
Tracing back to the Three Kingdoms period, Zhuge Liang, the prime minister of Shu, gave Zhang's surname to Longyou, the leader of the Na people living in Yunnan, and other leaders gave Yang, Li and Zhao's surnames.
It can be seen that the Bai people in Yunnan had Li more than 1,700 years ago.
After the Three Kingdoms, many Li moved to Yunnan, and over time, they merged with the Bai people. For example, Yang, Li, Zhao and other surnames in Er He Ren during the Zhenguan period of the Tang Dynasty all claimed to be * * *.
No wonder some people say that it is not easy for Li to tell who is Han and who is white in Yunnan.
In history, there have been some celebrities in Li of Bai nationality area, such as Li, a great director in Song Dynasty, Li Yuanyang, a writer and historian in Ming Dynasty, and Li Chongjie, a scholar in Qing Dynasty.
Now, Li is still one of the four surname of Bai nationality.
(5) She nationality
She refers to burning hazelnuts for farming, that is, burning the vegetation in the field before sowing and using ash as fertilizer.
She nationality is named after being engaged in slash-and-burn agriculture. They call themselves "She" or "Shanke", with about 380,000 people, who are distributed in some mountainous areas of more than 60 counties (cities) in Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Anhui and other provinces, with Fujian and Zhejiang as the most.
They generally speak Chinese, mainly engaged in agriculture, and have lived with the Han people for a long time, which is very close.
The genealogy of She nationality in Xiapu County, Fujian Province records that "in the second year of Tang Guangqi (AD 886), there were more than 360 people, including Pan, Lan, Lei, Zhong and Li, and the king of Fujian was a township official who came to Fujian from the sea", indicating that there were Li of She nationality in Fujian at the end of Tang Dynasty.
Li Zhifu, the leader of Fujian peasant uprising at the end of Yuan Dynasty, was called She nationality.
(6) Jews
Jews were called "Hebrews" in ancient times. He lived in Palestine in13rd century BC. In 1 1 century BC, he used Hebrew (Semitic language family belonging to Semitic language family) to establish the kingdom of Israel and Judaism.
During the reign of the Roman Empire in the first and second centuries A.D., most of them were driven out of their places of residence, and some of them were persecuted and slaughtered in Europe, or combined with local nationalities.
The introduction of Judaism into China began in the Tang Dynasty. More people came to China in the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty.
The ancestors of these Jews who entered China in the Northern Song Dynasty left their homeland in the 1970s BC and migrated to Mumbai. After living there for more than 1 100 years, they migrated eastward along the sea lanes in the middle and late1century and arrived in China.
They came to Tokyo, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty (now Kaifeng, Henan Province), paid tribute to the emperor and presented Xibu.
The emperor accepted their tribute and agreed that they would "leave the capital of song dynasty".
As a result, the Jewish family settled in Kaifeng, taking * * * as their surnames respectively.
At the same time, there are still some Jews scattered in Luoyang, Beijing, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Quanzhou and other places, but the largest number are Jews living in Kaifeng.
This Jewish immigrant living in Kaifeng, headed by Li, has seventeen surnames, including Li, An, Ai, Gao, Mu, Zhao, Jin, Zhou, Zhang, Shi, Huang, Nie, Jin, Zhang, Zuo and Bai, and two of them are "different families with the same surname".
In the third year of Dading in Jin Shizong (A.D. 1 163), he bought land to build a temple in the southeast of Kaifeng (now the hutong in the southern suburbs of Kaifeng, Henan Province), and named it * * Temple, which means "pure and perfect, true and innocent", commonly known as worship temple, and is the center of Jewish religious activities in Kaifeng.
This temple is the earliest, longest-preserved and most famous Chinese Jewish worship temple in the history of China.
In the Ming Dynasty, Kaifeng Jews entered its heyday, and Christians grew to more than 500 families with about 4,000 people.
In September of the 15th year of Chongzhen in Ming Dynasty (A.D. 1642), the Ming army dug the Yellow River levee and drowned the rebels in Li Zicheng, making Kaifeng a Zeguo, and Kaifeng Jews fled the whole country. Until the first year of Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty (A.D. 1662), the surviving Jews returned to Kaifeng with Han He and * * *, and then rebuilt the * * Temple on the site of the temple.
In the early Qing Dynasty, Kaifeng Jews had seven surnames: Li, Ai, Zhao, Zhang, Gao, Jin and Shi, with Li still ranking first.
At present, Kaifeng Jews still have four surnames and Li, and they have fully accepted Chinese culture.
(7) Mongolians
Li Yala, a native of Eight Banners in Mongolia, originally lived in Qifengling, Xiuyan, Dandong, and later belonged to Hongqi Mongolia with the homophonic Chinese character Li Wei as his surname.
In the 26th year of Qing Emperor Kangxi (A.D. 1687), he was ordered to be stationed in Qifengling, Xiuyan, and later his descendants were scattered in Tang Chi and Fengcheng.
(8) ***
Li in * * mainly comes from the given surname.
According to a brief history of celebrities in China, Li was one of the fifteen tribes of Zhili in the Tang Dynasty.
Because of the martial arts in the world, I am proud of the name of my country. "
Li Shunxian (poet), Li Cheng (writer and pharmacologist), three brothers and sisters of Shu before the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, were originally Persians. Before the Sui Dynasty, he came to China to do business and settled down, and he was given to Li as an official.
In the first year of Tang Dazhong (AD 847), it was recommended by lujun, the ambassador of Xuanwu Army, and was awarded Li Yansheng in Tuji the following year. In the fourth year of Taizu Kaibao (AD 97 1 year), Li Kemei, who was named General Huaihua, was a great gourmet, and his surname was given after the seal.
In the Tang dynasty, the family background was strict and the hierarchy was strict. The genealogy records of surnames were all "promulgated by the emperor", so it is not allowed to use the "national surname" falsely.
Li was given to * * not only in the Tang Dynasty, but also in the Ming Dynasty.
For example, Hazi, who was promoted to be the governor of the Royal Guards after translating foreign documents, was given the surname Li (Cheng) when he was rewarded by the imperial court in the second year of Xuande in the Ming Dynasty (AD 1427), because there was no Chinese name.
In addition, a few Li surnames originated from changing their surnames.
"Fu Jian book? According to Fang Waizhi, the original surname of the Ming Dynasty was Lin, but his ancestors died calmly in Fuzhou because of their loyalty and unyielding suspicion of power, and later changed their surname to Li.
In the Qing Dynasty, the Office of the Interior returned to Niya, a native of * * * *, and I changed my surname to Li, another branch of Li.
Ancestor: Loretta Lee.
Hao Tao, a descendant of Zhuan Xu, served as a prison administrator during the reign of Yao and Shun. Hao Tao was very accurate in judging cases and never made mistakes, which made him famous at that time.
His descendants inherited the post of "Dali" and took the official as their surname, which was called "Li".
At the end of Shang Dynasty, Hao Tao, the later agent, offended Zhou Wang because of unfair handling of the case, and was executed by the tyrant for no reason. His wife fled with her son Li Zhen and lived on Mu Zi (the fruit of plum tree) along the way.
Li Zhen's mother decided to change her surname from Li to Li, and she was composed of.
So he became the ancestor of Li.
Plum * * * is mainly distributed in Hebei, northwest and northeast.
In the history of China, as many as 58 people claimed to be kings, and successively established the regimes of Dacheng, Xiliang, Wu, Wei, Tang, Chu, Later Tang, Nantang, Dashu, Xixia and Dashun.
The fourth source: tiger totem theory
From the tiger totem theory.
This view holds that Li's totem is not a plum tree, but a tiger.
The totem of Laozi's birthplace in Li Er, Chen Chu is a tiger, and "Li Er" means "tiger" in Chu language.
Gong wrote the Outline of Primitive Worship, saying: Li Er is also a Chu language, that is, a tiger.
Lao Tzu's old country was Chen and died in Chu, so he was a Chu man.
Chen is from the Huaihe River Basin. He calls the tiger "Li Er".
This is why Lao Zi is also called Li Er.
Li Er should be Chu Chenren's common name for tigers.
According to legend, Lao Tzu was born in Geng Yin, a tiger.
At that time, Kuxian dialect called the tiger "raccoon", so all relatives and neighbors called Lao Zi "raccoon", and later it gradually evolved into "Li Er".
The fifth source: the old surname theory.
Originated from the old surname theory.
This statement mainly comes from the textual research of Laozi's surname, and holds that Laozi is not surnamed Li but surnamed Lao, and Li's surname comes from the old surname.
Tang Lan, an archaeologist, thinks that Laozi's surname Li Minger is untrue: "According to the common appellation of people at that time, the old word was the name of his clan, because people who called Zi at that time, such as Confucius, Youzi, Ceng Zi, Yoko, Mozi, Mencius, Zhuangzi and Huizi, all added Zi under the clan", "There is no trace of Li in ancient books." (Tang Lan: Textual Research on Lao Dan's Name and Time, Book IV of Ancient History, photocopied by Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 1982).
Make it clear that Lao Tzu is not surnamed Li, but surnamed Lao.
Guo Moruo, Ma Xulun, Chen Duxiu and others agreed with Tang's viewpoint.
Gao Feng has further textual research on this statement. In Preface to Laozi, he said that Laozi and Li Yi have changed. Laozi's original surname was Laozi, and later it changed, with the same pronunciation, so there must be two.
He listed four pieces of evidence:
First, in the old pre-Qin books such as Zhuangzi and Xunzi, Confucius and Mozi were given surnames, while Lao Dan was called "Kun Li" when he was alone with Laozi, not "Kun Li"; It is called "Lao Zi" instead of "Mei Zi", so "it can be seen that Lao Zi's original surname is old."
Second, "in ancient times, there was an old surname but no Li surname."
Custom Yi Tong: "Lao Shi, the son of Zhuan Xu." There was no Li surname in the Spring and Autumn Period.
Li Jue in Historical Records is an error of Li Jue in Zuo Zhuan.
During the Warring States Period, Li Mu appeared, and the origin of Li was very late.
Third, many ancient surnames have no original words, and they often borrow homophones.
Changing the old surname to Li is also homophonic.
Fourth, "the ancient rhyme' Lao' belongs to the hidden voice, and' Li' belongs to the voice. The two voices are close in sound and ancient is not ancient."
Gao Feng quoted a large number of sentences in Laozi, which proved that the occult and the part are harmonious.
Finally, he said: "Both Lao and Li belong to Lai Niu (that is, the initial consonant is L), and they belong to the same rhyme, but the sound is very clear, but the sound is the same, so they changed from Lao to Li."
According to others, the surname Li did not evolve from the surname Li, but originated from the old surname.
Teacher Gao's quotations from the perspective of phonology are very detailed and convincing.