Look up another surname
The tan Surname

tan Name Meaning and History

  1. Chinese : from the name of the state of Tan during the Zhou dynasty. After Wu Wang established the Zhou dynasty in 1122 bc, he enfeoffed the state of Tan to a descendant of the model emperor Yu (2205–2198 bc), with the status of Viscount. Descendants adopted the name of the state Tan as their surname.
  2. Chinese : said to be from the name of a certain King Tan of the state of Song, a 36th-generation descendant of its founder (see Song).
  3. Chinese : variant of Chen.
  4. Chinese : there are two groups of bearers of the character for this surname: one pronounced Tan, and the other Qin (see Qin), although both are represented with the same character.
  5. Korean: there are three Chinese characters for this surname; two of them are used by clans that now have only one surviving family each, according to a recent census. Some records indicate that there are 10 clans that use the third character for their surname, but only two can be documented: the Kangüm clan and the Yönan clan. Neither of these clans is very large.
  6. Filipino: unexplained.

Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
Learn the meaning and history of your first name
Share this page with friends and family

14–Day Free Trial

tan Family Facts

Distribution of tan Families in the US in 1920
Number of tan families
 12-21
 5-11
 1-4
 0
Compiled by Ancestry.co.uk from the 1920 US Federal Census records

Click on a state to view tan census records

Year

How is this helpful?

  • You can decide where (in which states) to start searching for tan records.
  • You can see how tan families moved over time by selecting different Census years.

What do I do next?

The information for this map came from Ancestry.co.uk’s US Federal Census Collection.
  • Census records can tell you little-known facts about your ancestors such as birthplace, residence and occupation.
  • Click here to search tan census records.

Search for tan records

Name

Birth

+/-
e.g. Reading, England, United Kingdom

Death

+/-
e.g. Reading, England, United Kingdom
Give priority to    

Only records from the UK and Ireland

More resources for your tan family history

Start your FREE family tree. Who will you discover?

A family tree is the easiest way to start discovering your family history. To begin, just enter whatever you know and we'll use that to try and find more information for you.

Begin your family tree with your name:

Learn more about family trees.

The tan name in History

A unique volume of fascinating facts, statistics and commentary following the tan family name as far back in history as possible.

Member Connections

More Tools and Resources