Chinese surname No.85 PI (skin)

[CHUNG Yoon-Ngan <chungyn@mozart.joinet.net.au>]

Hello David,

This is the history of your surname.
Please comment and edit it lest it will appear as it is in my 
book "The Origin of Chinese Surnames" 
(550 of them out of more than 5,000).


Chinese surname No.85 PI (皮)
Pi means : the integument of an animal; skin.
The surname Pi is about 2700 years old.

In 826BC Ji Jing (姬靜)  was crowned Zhou King Xuan (周宣王) of the Zhou
Dynasty (周朝 1134BC to 256BC). Zhou King Xuan appointed Zhong Shan Fu
(仲山甫) as his Prime Minister because he was a very capable
administrator.  Zhong Shan Fu was the second son of Ji Ju (姬具) the ruler
of the State of Lu (魯國 present day Qu Fu county 曲阜縣 in Shandong
province 山東省). In order to reward Zhong Shan Fu with the services he
had rendered to the Zhou Court, Zhou King Xuan conferred him the heritable
title of Hou (侯) or theMarquis and also delegated him the authority to
rule a district called Fan (樊 present day Chang Zi 長子 town in Shanxi
province 山西省). Zhong Shan Fu was known as Fan Hou (樊侯) or the Marquis
of Fan. Later, the district of Fan was upgraded into statehood and it
became to be known as the State of Fan (樊國). Zhong Shan Fu gave FAN as
the surname to his children
   
Fan Hou had two sons and the eldest son was inducted to succeed him. So he
appointed his second son called Fan Zhong Pi (樊仲皮) to administer an
area in the present day He Jin county (河津縣 in Shanxi province.

Some of the grandchildren of Fan Zhong Pi adopted PI as their surnames in
remembrance of him. Therefore surnames Fan (樊) and PI came from the same
ancestor Zhong4 Shan Fu.

The surname Pi originated in an area referred to during the Han Dynasty
(漢朝207BC to 220AD) as the Tian Shui prefecture (天水郡). The present day
location of Tian Shui prefecture is in the northwest of Tong Wei county
(西南通渭縣) in Gansu province (甘肅省).

CHUNG Yoon-Ngan  (鄭永元) 
chungyn@mozart.joinet.net.au
Copyright 1999. All rights reserved.