The Zhen surname is a rare Chinese surname. It is absent from the Northern Song dynasty's Hundred Family Surnames and most traditional surname dictionaries; about 60,000 people use it nationwide, mainly in Northeast China.
Several theories concern the origin of the Zhen surname: one connects it with the occupation of divination, another traces it to one of Baekje's eight major surnames, and another holds that it developed after an original surname was omitted from a personal name. A theory of surname concealment or change also exists, but has not been confirmed.
Surname-origin records list three accounts: Zhen was the name of a settlement and became a surname from that settlement; the surname descended from Prince Zhen of Chu in the Spring and Autumn period; and Baekje's eight major surnames included the Zhen clan.
The Zhen surname is now mainly distributed in Northeast China. Most Zhen residents in Guangdong migrated from outside the province in the early twentieth century, and most Zhen residents in Jieyang likewise came from elsewhere around that period.
Surname records identify Zhen Delin as a historical bearer of the surname; he served as the prefectural judge of Tingzhou in the early Duanping era of the Song dynasty.
The “Zhen Ji” mentioned in Biographies of Exemplary Women was a title bestowed by the King of Wu on a Chu woman praised for her chastity and righteousness, rather than her original surname.
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