Tang (/tɑːŋ/, Chinese: 唐, mandarin Pinyin: Táng; Japanese: 唐/とう/から; Korean: 당/唐; Cantonese : Tong; old Chinese read Dang), is a Chinese surname. The three languages also have the surname with the same character but different pronunciation/romanization. In Korean, it is usually romanized also as Dang. In Japanese, the surname is often romanized as To. In Vietnamese, it is commonly written as Đường (the anglicized variation is Duong, not be confused with Vietnamese surname Dương which is also anglicized as Duong). It is pronounced dhɑng in Middle Chinese, and lhāŋ in Old Chinese.
The surname 唐 is also romanized as Tong when transliterated from Cantonese, and this spelling is common in Hong Kong and Macau. In Chinese, 湯 (Pinyin: Tāng), is also romanized as Tang in English (and also Tong in Cantonese), although it is less common as a surname.
People with this surname mainly have two originations:
From the clan name Tao-Tang (or Taotang, Tao Tang)
Tao-Tang was the clan name for Emperor Yao's tribe, so Yao is also known as Tang Yao (唐堯/唐尧) or Tang Fangxun (唐放勛/唐放勋) (Fangxun literally means great meritorious service or contribution). Tao means pottery, which was a very important invention and tool in ancient China; Tang was the ancient name for the place currently is part of central China and the central plain of Shanxi Province. Yao's tribe combined the names of pottery and their resident place as their clan name . The descendants of Yao continued using the surname Tang instead of Tao-Tang, probably for simplification purpose.
From the King Tang Shuyu
In the early Zhou Dynasty (Western Zhou), when the King Wu of Zhou was still a child, one day he played a game with his young brother Tang Shuyu. The King Wu of Zhou cut a tung leaf to a Jade Gui (Chinese: 玉珪, a kind of jade article representing authority and trust) shape, sent to Tang Shuyu, and said: you are raised to the Marquis of Tang (Chinese: 唐侯, Tang here stands for the same place as mentioned above). The chancellor aside immediately advised the King Wu of Zhou to choose an auspicious day and make a royal ceremony for establishing Tang Shuyu. The King Wu of Zhou was surprised, and said, "We are just playing a game and I just made a joke." The chancellor replied: the King cannot make a joke, once the King speaks out, historians record his words, the loyal ceremony will be held, and the loyal music will be played." Thus Tang Shuyu was raised to the Marquis of Tang, and later became the first king of Jin. It's a famous historic event and the origin for the Chinese phrase Tongye Fenghou (Chinese: 桐叶封侯). His offspring continued using Tang as their surname.
Unlike some other Hui people who claim foreign ancestry, Hui in Gansu with the surname "Tang" 唐, are descended from Han Chinese who converted to Islam and married Muslim Hui or Dongxiang people, switching their ethnicity and joining the Hui and Dongxiang ethnic groups, both of which are Muslim.
A town called Tangwangchuan (唐汪川) in Gansu had a multi ethnic populace, the Tang 唐 and Wang 汪 families being the two major families. The Tang and Wang families were originally of non Muslim Han Chinese extraction, but by the 1910s some branches of the families became Muslim by "intermarriage or conversion" while other branches of the families remained non Muslim.
Tang Jian (579–656), Chinese official
Tang Yin (1470–1524), Chinese scholar, painter, calligrapher, and poet
Tang Zhen (1630–1704), Chinese philosopher and educator
Tang Tingshu (1832–1892), Chinese comprador, interpreter, and businessman
Tang Ching-sung (1841–1903), Chinese general and statesman
Tang Shaoyi (1862–1938), Chinese politician, first Premier of the Republic of China, 1912
Tang Jiyao (1883–1927), Chinese general and warlord of Yunnan
Tang Shengzhi (1889–1970): Chinese warlord and politician
Tang Junyi (1909–1978), Chinese philosopher
Tang Kesan (fl. 1930–1932), Chinese Muslim Kuomintang politician and eductator
Tang Ti-sheng (1917–1959), Cantonese opera playwright, scriptwriter, and film director
Tang Fei (born 1933), general and Premier of the Republic of China, 2000
Tang Jiaxuan (born 1938), foreign minister of the People's Republic of China, 1998–2003
Táng Chóngróng, Stephen Tong (born 1940), Chinese-Indonesian Reformed pastor, teacher and musician
Tang Shu Shuen (born 1941), former Hong Kong film director
Henry Tang (born 1952), Hong Kong politician
Tang Guoqiang (born 1952), Chinese actor
Danson Tang (born 1984), Taiwanese model, actor and singer
