Chang (surname)

Chang (/tʃɑːŋ/) is the pinyin romanization of the Chinese surname 常 (Cháng). It was listed 80th among the Song-era Hundred Family Surnames.

"Chang" is also the Wade-Giles romanization of two Chinese surnames written Zhang in pinyin: one extremely common and written 張 in traditional characters and 张 in simplified characters, and another quite rare and written as 章 in both systems. There is also a rare case of 鄭 in Hong Kong written as Chang as well. For full details on them, see the "Zhang" 章 and "Zheng" 鄭 article. In Macao, this is the spelling of the surname "Zeng" 曾.

Romanization

常 is romanized as Ch'ang in Wade-Giles, although the apostrophe is often omitted in practice. It is romanized as Soeng and Sheung in Cantonese; Seong and Siông in Minnan languages; and Sioh in Teochew. It is occasionally romanized Sōng and Thōng as well.

It is the source of the Vietnamese surname Thường. The Korean surname romanized as Sang (상). In Japanese, it is romanized as Jō.

Distribution

常 was unlisted among the most recent rankings of the 100 most common Chinese surnames in mainland China and on Taiwan based on household registrations in 2007, although the Ministry of Public Security in 2008 listed is as the 87th most common surname in China based on its database of National Identity Cards, shared by at least 2.4 million Chinese citizens. It was the 94th-most-common surname during the 1982 Chinese census.