  zhao [dÊaÊ]/ chao or chiu (, , ) is a common chinese family name, ranking as the 7th most common surname in mainland china and carried mainly by people of mandarin-speaking regions. zhao is the first surname in the famous hundred family surnames â the traditional list of all chinese surnames â because it was the royal surname of the song dynasty (960â1279) when the list was compiled. on occasion, zhao can denote the much less common family name zhÃ o (å). ==history== zhao is one of the most ancient of chinese surnames, and its origins are partly shrouded in legend. during the reign of king mu of zhou (976/956 bc â 922/918 bc), an officer named zaofu () proved exceptionally adept at training horses and driving chariots and won the respect of king mu. during a battle with the eastern state of xu, a non-chinese state which was resisting zhou rule, zaofu drove a chariot into the battle and escorted king mu back to the zhou capital. in gratitude, king mu enfeoffed zaofu as the lord of zhao, a town in what is now hongdong county, shanxi province, to be held by his descendants in perpetuity. zaofu's descendants took zhao as a surname to mark their prestigious association with the city. records such as sima qian's records of the grand historian say that zaofu was a descendant of legendary kings zhuanxu, shaohao, and the yellow emperor. the town zhao became part of the state of jin during the warring states period, when the zhou dynasty began to collapse. in 403 bc, jin split into three smaller states, one of which was the state of zhao. during this period, the common ancestral name ying (å¬´) split into 14 clan names: lian (å»), xu (å¾), jiang (æ±), qin (ç§¦), zhao (è¶), huang (é»), liang (æ¢), ma (é¦¬), ge (è), gu (è°·), mou (ç¹), zhong (é¾), fei (è²»), and qu (ç¿). the zhao clan rulers of state of qin and state of zhao were highly successful, an
Chinese-language_surnames Royalty Surnames