You / You
The surname has three recorded origin traditions: descendants of You Yu, a Western Rong figure in the Spring and Autumn period; descendants of the Chu official Wangsun Youyu; and, in another account, descendants of the Chu official Yang Youji. The surname is also found among Manchu, Mongol, and other ethnic groups.
You is a currently uncommon Han Chinese surname. It is distributed in Chang le of Shandong, Taiyuan of Shanxi, Xinshe and Chenghai of Guangdong, and Qiubei of Yunnan. The Clan Summary sections of the Zheng Tongzhi and Xu Tongzhi both record it.
Genealogical accounts state that most Shandong You families migrated from the Dahuaishu area of Hongdong County, Shanxi, during the Hongwu era of the Ming dynasty and spread to various places. During the Qianlong and Yongzheng eras of the Qing dynasty, some members of the Gangyu village lineage in Fushan moved south to Haiyang. Later groups also moved to Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, and Inner Mongolia.
Historical figures bearing the You surname include You Yu of the Spring and Autumn period; You Zhang and You Guangguo of the Han dynasty; You Jujing of the Tang dynasty; and You Min, You Xi, You Ming, You Ming, You Liang, You Liemen, You Jiufeng, and You Ning of the Ming dynasty.
The Fushan, Shandong genealogy names You Shiwen and You Shiwu as first-generation ancestors. Generations two through eleven share the sequence “Hao, Yong, Tai, Jing, Ting, Shang, Da, Xing, Dong, Sheng”; from the twelfth generation, the lineage divides into southern, western, eastern, and northern branches, each with its own generation-name sequence.
Start with ancestral counties, villages, personal names and dates. Record genealogy titles, volumes, editions and catalog identifiers. A shared surname does not prove a shared lineage; compare branch records.
These catalogs or datasets attest written names, not every origin or lineage claim on this page.
This page includes automatically organized material. Check the references and original family documents.
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