Ding (surname)

Ding
Family name
File:丁.png Ding in Chinese character
Region of origin	China

Ding (Chinese: 丁; pinyin: Dīng; Wade–Giles: Ting¹) is one of the simplest written Chinese family names (the only two characters that are simpler are "一" and "乙"), written in two strokes.

Origins

Ding is the 46th most common surname in China. 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 Spring and Autumn period, the descendants of Duke Ding of Song also used Ding as their last name.
• During the Three Kingdoms period, a general, Sun Kuang of the Wu kingdom, accidentally burnt the food supply and as a punishment, the king Sun 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.

Hui ethnic group

File:Lingshan Islamic Cemetery - Ding ancestors 2 - DSCF8446.JPG

The tomb of one of the ancestors of Quanzhou's Ding clan (as well as Jiang and Chen), in Lingshan Islamic Cemetery

Among the Hui Muslims, the surname Ding is thought to originate from the last syllable of the Arabic honorific "ud-Din" or "al-Din" (as in, for example, the name of the Bukharan Muslim Sayyid Ajjal Shams ud-Din (1210–1279; also spelled al-Din), who was appointed Governor of Yunnan by the Mongol Yuan dynasty).

In particular, descent from Sayyid Ajjal Shams ud-Din, known in Chinese as Saidianchi Shansiding (赛典赤赡思丁), is attested in the Ding lineage of Chendai, near Quanzhou, Fujian.

File:Lingshan Islamic Cemetery - Ding clan - DSCF8455.JPG

Graves of Dings, and their relatives, Jiangs and Chens, in Quanzhou's Lingshan Islamic Cemetery. Note that some tombs bear Christian symbols.

Although they do not practise Islam, the Ding clan remains as one of the better-known Hui clans around Quanzhou, Fujian that still identify as Muslim. It is to be noted that 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 (Ting) 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 (in Chinese, Nasulading) among themselves.

Other variations

• Ting, used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Philippines
• Đinh (Dinh), used in Vietnam
• Chung or Jeong, used in Korea

Notable people

• Ting Chao (1883–1939), military general
• Ding Feng (Chengyuan), military general for Eastern Wu
• Ding Junhui, snooker player
• Ding Lei, founder of Netease
• Ding Ling, author
• Ding Liren, chess player
• Ding Ning, table tennis player
• Ding Wei, go player
• Ding Yixin, chess player
• Ding Zilin, Professor, currently the leader of the political pressure group Tiananmen Mothers.
• Samuel C. C. Ting, Nobel Prize laureates in Physics, 1976.
• KH Ting, bishop
• Ding Ruchang, late Qing dynasty admiral in the First Sino-Japanese War
• Ding Sheng, general, Governor of Guangdong
• Ding Yiping, vice admiral, former deputy commander of the PLA Navy
• Ding Yi, vice admiral, deputy commander of the PLA Navy
• Ding Haichun, vice admiral, deputy political commissar of the PLA Navy
• Ding Laihang, lieutenant general of the PLA Air Force
• Chung Il-kwon (丁一權 정일권), South Korean military general.

Fictional characters

• Ding Hai, the central character of The Greed of Man, played by Adam Cheng.
• Ding Lik, a secondary protagonist in The Bund, played by Ray Lui.
• Ding Yau Kin, the main protagonist of Looking Back In Anger, played by Felix Wong.
• Ding Yau Hong, the main antagonist of Looking Back In Anger, played by Deric Wan.