Morning journal and courier., 1885-07-30
NAMES OF THE CHINESE.
PeeuIfarities of Family Names In the
 Celestial KIngdom-FuRny Combi-

PeeuIiarities of Family Names In the Celestial K1ngdom-FuRny Comb1- nations.
 From the Baltimore American.J
 t'The names of Chinamen translated into English" said a laundryman the other day,
 'sound and look ridiculous, and afford no idea whatever of their real meaning. In the Celestial kingdom family name is carried
 around for thousands of years, through 100 generations It can be spelled only phonet- ically in any other language. A few of the most common family names Flung, Hing, Hop, Lee, Lum, Nom, Sing, Sang, Tong and Wah. To these are added surnames equiva- lent to the English John, Thomas, and so on, but, unlike these surnanes, they are in every instance descriptive of some trait or custom, or perpetuate some deed or some event in the family history. There are in the entire Chi nese Empire not over ,0O0 different family names, while in the United States there are, in a population not one-tenth great, ,4O, 900 distinct family names, and 5000 surnames, nearly all of them purely arbitrary, so far as they have any longer any except an obsolete signifcation.
 ssThe family name of Mongolian may sometimes convey ludicrous meaning. For instance, Flung means ''the worshiper of the divine chop sticks" Gee means bandy-leg ged, and, therefore, Flung Gee means 1tthe bandy-legged worshipper of the divine chop sticks" Gung means lover of rats, and the original meaning of a family name will not infrequently become gradually breodened in its implication, so that Flung Gung means, in popular language, 8 fat rat-eater. This has been corrupted into good eater. Hing is a family name that signifies cross-eyed, and Hing Flung in his own country would become cross-eyed worshipper of the divine chop-sticks. Of course, the original Mr Hing was afflicted with strabismus, but the blow falls heavily on his descendants who are not cross-eyed. Hop expresses the idea of bold, bad man, pirate in bygone days, perhaps, or Q money-changer, and Han means pink-cheeked; so you have Hop Han as the pink-cheeked pirate of the Chinese main. Lee, one of the most common family nam 8, means musician, one who plays on the bazoo and Sun means rough fellow, one un- tanned. In other words, Sun Lee, or Lee Sun, can with perfect propriety be addressed as the wild Mongolian bazoo player. "But the funniest combination I ever knew" said the washerman, sinking his fal- setto voice into whisper that his partner, who was drying shirts in the other room, might not hear him, "was Yung Flung Lung. Yung means qusueless- d-headed. Flung is numeral for 5000, referring probably to the date of the origin of the Yung family. Lung means one having deformed feet cover ed with corns or warts, an affiiction quite common among the lower classes of China men. Join the three names together and
 see what nice tbing you have. The bald
 headed one with 5000 corns on his feet; that is literal translation. Lee, as told you,
 means musician, and Tong expresses the idea | of a large mouth, literally big and ugly fea- | tured, and Tong Lee is, therefore, more accu- | rately referred to as the large-mouthed blow CT on the bold bazoo."
 ''Msny of the Chinese family names e1- press sentiments, uch as Wah gentle lover;;' | Foy, 'rice-eater full of joy;' Lum, 'brave
 hunter;' Nom, Mum, Nun or Mong, celestial
 comforter (akin to priest); Wing, soft-eyed
 opium guzzler'; Yik, 'piggler,' and Won,
 names