The Bei Clan#

Surname: Bei, Pronunciation: bèi

Regions Where the Bei Clan Is Found**#

Qinghe County, Hebei Province

Origin of the Bei Clan#

The Bei clan is one of the Chinese surnames, ranking 110th in the "Hundred Family Surnames" list. The total number of people with the Bei surname does not rank among the top 100 largest surnames in mainland China or Taiwan Province.

Origin of the Surname "Bei":

1. It originates from the Ji surname, specifically from a concubine child of King Wen of Zhou named Ji. His descendants were granted the fiefdom of T, and the surname was derived from the name of the state.
2. It can also originate from place names, such as the ancient Beiqiu region, where people adopted the name of their residence as their surname.

Migration and Distribution

The total number of people with the Bei surname does not rank among the top 100 largest surnames in mainland China or Taiwan Province. It also ranked 110th in the Song Dynasty version of the "Hundred Family Surnames." The ancestors of the Bei clan can be traced back to the Western Zhou period. A son of King Wen of Zhou was granted the fiefdom of Julu in present-day Hebei Province, where he established the state of T. The descendants of the royal family adopted the state name as their surname, but later removed the "yi" (residence) character and changed it to "bei." Therefore, the Bei surname is also derived from the royal lineage of the Zhou dynasty (the Ji surname). Later, a branch of the Bei clan migrated from Julu to the southeast of present-day Boxing County, Shandong Province. As the population of the Bei clan grew, the area came to be known as Beiqiu, and some of the inhabitants adopted the surname "Bei." The Bei clan eventually became a prominent family in Qinghe County, known as the "prominent family of Qinghe County."

Notable People with the Surname Bei

Bei Yiyuan: (Birth and death years unknown), from Wuxing (present-day Huzhou, Zhejiang). A famous calligrapher during the Southern Dynasties, particularly associated with the Liang dynasty. Bei Yiyuan was skilled in calligraphy, with characters that were precise, powerful, and fluid in style. He excelled in writing large characters, which incorporated the style of running script, making them even more vigorous. His works, such as the "Shixing Zhongwu Wang Xiao Zhao Stele" and the "Ancheng Kang Wang Xiao Xiu Stele," are still preserved in Nanjing, Jiangsu. The former is in regular script, and although the inscription is partially damaged, its calligraphy is graceful and elegant, incorporating elements of running and cursive scripts, with a compact and dense structure, which is rare among Southern Dynasties steles.