姓
xìng HSK2

one's family name

Phonosemantic compound. 女 represents the meaning and 生 represents the sound.

Components

女
女 Meaning component
nǚ, nü woman
生
生 Sound component
shēng, sheng life

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Spring and Autumn ~600 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartsjengHseŋ-s surname

說文解字

《說文》：“姓，人所生也。古之神聖母，感天而生子，故稱天子。从女，从生，生亦聲。《春秋傳》曰：‘天子因生以賜姓。’”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)