Zhang in Chinese: 张

Zhang is written 张 in Mandarin. The characters are chosen to carry the sound and the sense of Zhang rather than to transliterate it letter by letter, which is how Chinese names are actually made. On this page the seal is carved in the Zhongshan King (中山王) bronze-inscription seal script, with the Academia Sinica Chongxi Small Seal (崇羲篆體) filling any character the main font lacks.

张 breaks down as 张 (zhāng) — To draw a bow wide; to stretch. A surname of archers and expansion. The seal note we would put under it: Bow-and-arrow surname: expansive energy.

Pinyin: zhāng — 张 is tone 1 (a flat, level pitch held high). Mandarin has four tones plus a neutral tone, and getting them wrong is the most common mistake Western speakers make with Chinese names — the seal itself is unaffected, since the carving is of the written form.

Yes. 张 (zhāng) is one of the recorded Chinese surnames. The character is a bow, 弓, grown long, 长. Tradition credits the Yellow Emperor’s grandson Hui with inventing the bow and arrow and being enfeoffed at Qingyang for it; his house took the weapon’s name as theirs. Zhang is the archer’s surname, borne today by tens of millions. The full account, with the character’s own etymology, is on the 张 surname page — and that lineage is the reason a Western name can borrow the character for a surname at all.

张 is built from 张 — 张 (zhāng) — and no other curated name on this site shares that combination, because each entry is built around its own sound and its own meaning rather than recycled syllables. Names that start the same way as Zhang are linked at the foot of this page.

Chinese surname 张 — "to draw the bow": the archer's name, from a legendary master of chariots. Over a hundred million strong — the surname of every Chinese archery range, real or remembered. The full account — the etymology, the bearers, and why this site renders it as 张 — is in the section above.