Dan
GenderUnisex
Language(s)English, Hebrew, Hungarian, Romanian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean
Origin
Meaning
Other names
Variant form(s)

Dan is a given name and surname in various cultures.

Given name

Origins as a given name

Dan is an old Scandinavian given name with several disputed origins. The most likely theory is that it originated from the Old Norse ethnonym danir for Danes. This in turn originated from the Proto-Germanic masculine word *daniz. There are several historical variants including **Halbadaniz "half-Dane", as well as *Daniskaz "Danish" (where the *-iskaz suffix is ancestral to modern English -ish).

The name Dan is also a Hebrew given name, after Dan, the fifth son of Jacob with Bilhah and founder of the Israelite Tribe of Dan.[1] It is also (along with the variant Danny) a given name or a nickname for people named Daniel or possibly Jordan.

Surname

Origins

As an English surname, Dan is a variant spelling of Dann.[2] Dann, another variant spelling of which is Dane, is a toponymic surname which originates from the Middle English dene and Old English denu, "valley".[3]

The Hebrew surname Dan (Hebrew: דן) is a biblical name which refers to the tribe of Dan. As a given name it first appears in Genesis 30.[4]

The Hungarian surname Dán is an abbreviation of Dániel.[5]

Dan may be the spelling of multiple Chinese surnames, based on their pronunciation in different varieties of Chinese; they are listed below by their spelling in Hanyu Pinyin, which reflects the standard Mandarin pronunciation:

There are multiple Japanese surnames which are romanised as Dan, including:[8]

There are three separate Korean surnames spelled in the Revised Romanization of Korean as Dan (Korean: 단; MR: Tan), each written with a different hanja. Bearers of each surname identify with a number of distinct bon-gwan, which are hometowns of clan lineages.[9]

  • The most common, Cheunggye Dan (段; 층계 단), means "stairs". This character is also used to write the Chinese surname now pronounced Duàn in Mandarin.[10] Major clans with this surname include:
  • The second most common, Hot Dan (單; 홑 단), means "single" or "one". This character is also used to write the Chinese surname now pronounced Shàn in Mandarin.[15]
  • The least common, Kkeut Dan (端; 끝단), means "end".[16]

Statistics

In South Korea, the 2000 census found 1,429 people belonging to 437 households with the surname Dan meaning "stairs". There were also 122 people belonging to 40 households with the surname Dan meaning "single", and 34 people belonging to nine households with the surname Dan meaning "end".[9]

According to statistics cited by Patrick Hanks, there were 284 people on the island of Great Britain and 13 people on the island of Ireland with the surname Dan as of 2011. There had been 177 bearers of the surname in Great Britain in 1881, primarily in Devonshire and Cornwall.[17]

The 2010 United States Census found 2,599 people with the surname Dan, making it the 12,012th-most-common name in the country. This represented an increase from 2,315 (12,317th-most-common) in the 2000 Census. In both censuses, about half of the bearers of the surname identified as White, and one-quarter as Asian.[18] Dan was the 1,670th-most-common surname among respondents to the 2000 Census who identified as Asian.[19]

People

Chinese surnames Dān (丹) and Dàn (但)

Japanese surnames Dan (檀, 団)

  • Fumi Dan (檀 ふみ; born 1954), Japanese actress
  • Jirō Dan (団 時朗), stage name of Hideo Murata (1949–2023), Japanese actor
  • Kazuo Dan (檀 一雄; 1912–1976), Japanese novelist and poet
  • Mitsu Dan (壇 蜜), stage name of Shizuka Saitō (born 1980), Japanese actress
  • Rei Dan (檀 れい), stage name of Mayumi Yamazaki (born 1971), Japanese actress
  • Tomoyuki Dan (檀 臣幸; 1963–2013), Japanese actor and voice actor

Romanian

Other

  • Aubrey Dan (born 1963), Canadian businesswoman
  • Bill Dan, Indonesian-born American sculptor and performance artist
  • Fyodor Dan (1871–1947), Russian Marxist revolutionary
  • Joseph Dan (1935–2020), Hungarian-born Israeli scholar of Jewish mysticism
  • Leslie Dan (born 1929), Hungarian-born Canadian businessman
  • Liran Dan (fl. 1998–present), Israeli government official and media executive
  • Seaman Dan (Henry Gibson Dan, 1929–2020), Australia-Torres Straits Islander singer

See also

References

  1. ↑ What's in a Name? (in English, French, and German). Biel: Jewish Museum of Switzerland. 2022. ISBN 978-3-907262-34-4.
  2. ↑ Hanks, Patrick; Coates, Richard; McClure, Peter, eds. (2016). The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland. Oxford University Press. p. 665. ISBN 9780192527479.
  3. ↑ Hanks, Coates & McClure 2016, p. 668
  4. ↑ Guggenheimer, Heinrich Walter; Guggenheimer, Eva H. (1992). Jewish Family Names and Their Origins. New York: KTAV Publishing House. p. 181. ISBN 0881252972.
  5. ↑ Kálmán, Béla (1978). The World of Names: A Study in Hungarian Onomatology. Akadémiai Kiadó. ISBN 9789630513999. OCLC 4664303.
  6. ↑ 罗健名 (2012). "新加坡华人姓氏平写法研究". In 罗福腾 (ed.). 《新加坡华语应用研究新进展》. Global Publishing. p. 248. ISBN 9789813205970.
  7. ↑ 梁猷刚 (1988). 《海南音字典（普通话对照）》. 华南师范大学中文系《方音字典》. 广东人民出版社. p. 75. ISBN 7218001955. The Hainanese Transliteration Scheme is based on the prestige Wenchang dialect.
  8. ↑ Breen, Jim. "Japanese Names (ENAMDICT)". Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group. Retrieved 2014-04-14.
  9. 1 2 "행정구역(구시군)/성씨·본관별 가구 및 인구" [Family names by administrative region (district, city, county): separated by bon-gwan, households and individuals]. Korean Statistical Information Service. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  10. ↑ "段". Naver Hanja Dictionary. Naver. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  11. ↑ "연안단씨(延安段氏)" [Yeonan Dan clan]. Academy of Korean Studies. Archived from the original on 30 March 2019. Retrieved 30 March 2019.
  12. ↑ "강음단씨(江陰段氏)" [Gangeum Dan Clan]. Academy of Korean Studies. Archived from the original on 30 March 2019. Retrieved 30 March 2019.
  13. ↑ "강릉단씨(江陵段氏)" [Gangneung Dan clan]. Academy of Korean Studies. Archived from the original on 30 March 2019. Retrieved 30 March 2019.
  14. ↑ "단(段)" [Dan]. Daejeon: Jokbo Museum. Retrieved 5 May 2019. The Jokbo Museum cites the following work for their pages on family names: 김진우 (2009). 한국인 의 역사 [The History of Koreans]. 春秋筆法 [Chunchu Pilbeop]. OCLC 502157619.
  15. ↑ "單". Naver Hanja Dictionary. Naver. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  16. ↑ "端". Naver Hanja Dictionary. Naver. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  17. ↑ Hanks, Coates & McClure 2016, p. 665
  18. ↑ "How common is your last name?". Newsday. Retrieved 5 September 2018.
  19. ↑ "Most common last names for Asians and Pacific Islanders in the U.S." Mongabay. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
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