Chinese Lunar New Year and tsinoy surnames

This week on January 22 was the start of the Year of the Water Rabbit. Filipino culture and heritage are an amalgamation of the cultures of both east and west. And, while we welcome the traditional New Year every January 1st, we also celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year with much gusto. We partake in many Chinese practices such as consulting Feng Shui experts for good luck, reading and believing in the Chinese horoscope, and doing dragon dances and fireworks. Former senator Edgardo Angara said in 2013 that there are 22.8 million Filipinos of Chinese descent. Truly, it is undeniable that there are numerous Filipinos today who have at least one Chinese ancestor in their family tree.

One interesting fact is that the Chinese were the first to use family names and many Chinese surnames were adopted thousands of years earlier than the Europeans. In the Philippines, Chinese surnames came about in several ways. Since Claveria’s 1849 surname decree, all Christianized Spanish subjects in the Philippines adopted a surname and, in many cases, Chinese mestizos combined the names of their Chinese fathers to form their own. Hence, we have surnames like Cojuangco, Lamco, Tantoco, or Lichauco. Most who joined their father’s names combined the family name and the first name, and dropped the last syllable of the first name, with many adding the suffixes -co (meaning ‘older brother’) and -son (which indicated being a ‘son of’). Historian Hector Santos wrote that the suffix -co also signified a lofty position in the community and was equivalent to the title of “Don”. The other two ways by which Chinese mestizos complied with the Claveria decree was the formalization of their use of their one-syllable last names like Lim, Ang, Tan, etc., or perhaps adopting an altogether non-Chinese last name like the ancestor of Rizal who chose Mercado to assimilate. This last option was also common for many Chinese mestizos whose ancestors had long ago discarded their Chinese last name, like the ancestors of Presidents Aguinaldo and Magsaysay who were always classified as Chinese mestizos, and of the mestizo families of the Parian of Iloilo and Cebu, many of whom were already using very Spanish-sounding family names even before the Claveria surname decree.

The latest figures show that the ten most common Chinese last names in the country are: Tan, Dizon, Lim, Chua, Uy, Samson, Ong, Go, Yap, and Tuazon. While single-syllable surnames are most common, there are a few two-syllable Chinese surnames that are numerous: Dizon, Samson, and Sison are populous in the north, especially in the Cordilleras, Ilocos, Cagayan, Calabarzon, Central Luzon, and Bicol regions.

In Cebu City, American historian Michael Cullinane meticulously documented the Chinese mestizo families from Parian in his latest book “The Chinese Mestizos of Cebu City 1750–1900”. These include the Osmeñas, Del Mars, Velosos, Sansons, and many more. Throughout the province, Chinese mestizo families can still be discerned even if they no longer carry Chinese last names. In Liloan, for instance, records show the Yuson, Abucay, Pilapil, Mendoza, Son, Cabajug, Caparroso, Camay, and Toto families being classified as Chinese mestizo during the Spanish period. In Argao, families with Chinese blood descended from the Chinese migrants in the early to late nineteenth century coming from Tong’an, South Fujian, although in the mid-1800s several mestizo families from Cebu, such as the Siyap family, settled in Argao.

Every Lunar New Year is not just all about Chinese horoscope and Feng Shui, it is also a constant reminder for many Filipinos of their Chinese heritage. We may all be separated by various lines, races, and tribes now, but trace your family tree far enough and everyone becomes your cousin. Kung Hei Fat Choi!