Posted by shinji nakano on January 23, 2001 at 20:18:56:
In Reply to: LOOKING FOR ANYONE WITH THE 'TE' SURNAME...... posted by Thuy Phung Te on January 20, 2001 at 05:37:30:
: Hi there,
: I am desperate to find out more about my surname, TE...it is definitely a chinese origin but nobody seems to know what the chinese equilvilent is. TE is Vietnamese, i know that my clan is based on the Hainan island......anyone else here from the hainan islands??? anybody with the TE surname?
: Thanks
Hi Thuy!
I hope the following will be useful: There are actually two separate Chinese surnames which are written as TE(with a circumflex and accent grave) in Vietnamese. The first surname in pinyin is written as QI or in Yale romanization CHI. The second Chinese equivalent of TE has been recorded as a character having 10 strokes, but I don't know exactly how it would be romanized in Chinese. However, if you are interested, in Japanese it is read in ON-reading(Japanized Chinese reading) as SAI. I am guessing that the Chinese pronounciation would be close to this. It basically means "manage, rule" and is used to write such words as SAISHO (prime minister or premier).