Spellings of Surnames

Though the correct Pinyin pronunciation for our surname is Zeng, the choice of spellings for the surname, as well as the other two personal names, can be a problem.

Most people are accustomed to seeing the spellings of names in the pronunciations of the different Chinese dialects and the local English or Malay phonetic alphabets popularly used during that time.

During the old days, all births must be registered at the nearest police station. The father or a relative of the newborn would pronounce the child's name for registration, and the officer-in-charge, usually a Malay, would record it according to what he had heard.

The following table summarizes the characteristics of the word Zeng:

• Chinese Commercial Code number: 2582

• The Chinese Character: Zeng

• No. of strokes for written word: 12

• Order in traditional book "Hundred Family Surnames" Baijiaxing: 385

• The Pinyin romanization: Zeng

• The Wade-Giles (Mandarin) romanization: Tseng, Tsang

• Other English spellings: Cheng, Chng, Jeng, Chung

• Hokkien common spelling: Chan

• Cantonese common spelling: Chang

The two most commonly used local spellings are Chan and Chang. Our grandfather was known as Chan Ah Kee as this appeared in this Permit to Bury death certificate in 1947.

Our version of Chung came about when it was first used in an application for naturalization for our father Chung Chow in 1961.

Since then, all his descendants except for Chang Chu Tai followed this surname spelling.

In this blog, the spellings used are as recorded in official documents such as naturalization or citizenship certificates, birth certificates, identity cards etc.

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