Origin of The Surname
Traditional sources trace the surname to Yuan Taotu, a 7th century BC Chen nobleman, who was part of a collateral branch of the family of the marquis ruling that state. He selected the second character in his grandfather's style name, Boyuan (伯爰), to be his own family name. Yuan Taotu was granted a feoff in Yangxia (陽夏), in what is now Taikang county, Henan. This estate is regarded as the ancestral home of the earliest Yuan clan. Through its connection with the ruling family of Chen, the Yuan house could also claim ancestry from the semi-legendary Emperor Shun. Descendants of Yuan house are mentioned by name in the Zuo Zhuan as holding high office in the state of Chen until it was extinguished by Chu in 479 BC.
An alternate, much less widely accepted theory, suggests that the surname Yuan is derived from Xuanyuan (軒轅 or 玄袁), the clan name of the Yellow Emperor. After his death, the Yellow Emperor's estates came to be called Yuanyi (袁邑), and his descendants took their place of birth as a surname.
Prior to the unification of China in 221 BC, the surname is only known to have been present in the historical domain of Chen. Some members of the Yuan clan are known to have moved to Zheng and other neighbouring states. The process of emigration from the Yangxia heartland continued after unification. An example of this is the case of Yuan Ang, a minister to Emperor Gao of Han. His family was forced by banditry to move to Anling, in the area of modern Xi'an, some 500 km west of their ancestral homeland.
The surname Yuan could be written in at least five different ways in early Han times, and they were used interchangeably in pre-Han times. By the 1st century, the name had taken a largely standardised form (袁), which remains to the present day. An early dictionary, the Shuowen, defines this character as "a long garment", but this archaic meaning had already fallen into disuse. The Han text Qian fu lun (潛夫論: "Comments of a Recluse") suggests that the character was derived from either 1) the character ai (哀), meaning "sorrow, grief"; or 2) a combination of the characters gong (公: "lord") and gu (谷: "grain").
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