Lú is the

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

romanization of the

Chinese surname Chinese surnames are used by Han Chinese and Sinicized ethnic groups in China, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam, and among overseas Chinese communities around the world such as Singapore and Malaysia. Written Chinese names begin with surnames, unlike the ...

written in

simplified character Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters used in mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore, as prescribed by the ''Table of General Standard Chinese Characters''. Along with traditional Chinese characters, they are one o ...

and in

traditional character Traditional Chinese characters are one type of standard Chinese character sets of the contemporary written Chinese. The traditional characters had taken shapes since the clerical change and mostly remained in the same structure they took at ...

. It is also spelled Lo according to the

Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...

pronunciation. Lu 芦 is the 140th most common surname in China, with a population of 980,000. A relatively new surname, it is not listed in the

Song dynasty The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...

classic text ''

Hundred Family Surnames The ''Hundred Family Surnames'' (), commonly known as ''Bai Jia Xing'', also translated as ''Hundreds of Chinese Surnames'', is a classic Chinese text composed of common Chinese surnames. An unknown author compiled the book during the Song dy ...

''.

Demographics

As of 2008, Lu 蘆 is the 140th most common surname in China, shared by 980,000 people, or 0.079% of the Chinese population. It is concentrated in the provinces of

Anhui Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze River ...

Hubei Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The prov ...

Hebei Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, an ...

, and

Henan Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is al ...

, which altogether account for 43% of the total, including 17% in Anhui alone.

Origins

Lu 蘆 is a relatively new surname by Chinese standard, with a history of about 1,500 years. It was first recorded during the

Xianbei The Xianbei (; ) were a Proto-Mongolic ancient nomadic people that once resided in the eastern Eurasian steppes in what is today Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Northeastern China. They originated from the Donghu people who splintered into the ...

Northern Wei dynasty, when Emperor Xiaowen (reigned 467–499 AD) implemented a drastic policy of

sinicization Sinicization, sinofication, sinification, or sinonization (from the prefix , 'Chinese, relating to China') is the process by which non-Chinese societies come under the influence of Chinese culture, particularly the language, societal norms, cul ...

, ordering his own people to adopt Chinese-style surnames. The Molu (莫蘆) tribe of Xianbei adopted Lu 蘆 as their surname. During the

Ming The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han peop ...

and Qing dynasties, many people of the Zhuang, Yao, and

Miao Miao may refer to: * Miao people, linguistically and culturally related group of people, recognized as such by the government of the People's Republic of China * Miao script or Pollard script, writing system used for Miao languages * Miao (Unicode ...

ethnicities in southern China also adopted the surname.

Notable people

* Lu Di ( 芦荻; born 1931), Peking University professor, animal rights activist * Lu Xiumei ( 芦秀梅; 1957–2012),

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...

singer * Lu Xin ( 芦欣; born 1974), football player * Lu Qiang ( 芦强; born 1989), football player * Lu Zheyu ( 芦哲宇; born 1989), football player * Lu Di ( 蘆笛), writer * Lu Weiqi ( 蘆葦琪), TV presenter

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lu Chinese-language surnames Individual Chinese surnames