The li Surname
li Name Meaning and History
- Chinese
: from a character meaning ‘minister’. This
was part of the title of Gao Yao, a great-grandson of the legendary
emperor Zhuan Xu, who became famous as a minister under the model
emperors Yao and Shun in the 23rd century bc; he was the
first to introduce laws for the repression of crime. His descendants
adopted this part of his title as their surname. The use of this name
continued for over a millennium to the twelfth century bc,
down to the rule of the last king of the Shang dynasty, the despotic
Zhou Xin. Li Zhi, the head of the Li clan at that time, displeased
Zhou Xin and was executed, leaving the rest of the clan facing
imminent disaster. They fled, and nearly starved to death, surviving
only by eating a fruit called mu zi. When the characters for
mu and zi are combined, they form the character for
plum, pronounced Li. In token of this salvation, the clan
changed their name to the current character for li ‘plum’.
Li is now the most common surname in China. Among the many
famous bearers are Lee Kwan Yew, prime minister of Singapore from 1959
to 1990; Lee Teng-hui, president of Taiwan from 1988; Li Peng, prime
minister of China from 1988; and Bruce Lee (1941–73), movie actor.
- Chinese
: from the name of a state of Li (in
present-day Shanxi province), which existed during the Shang dynasty
(1766–1122 bc). Descendants of the state’s rulers adopted
the name of the state as their surname. - Chinese
:
this character for Li is an altered form of 1 above. - Norwegian: habitational name from any of numerous farmsteads named Li, from Old Norse hlíð ‘mountain slope’, ‘hillside’.
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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