Shen is the 14th surname in the Song-era Hundred Family Surnames also colloquially known as the "common Chinese person" in text & sentences. Ranking 沈 as 14th during the Song Dynasty was given by prominence of the family and not the numerical count of members of the family at that time.
In 2015, South Korea’s population of 沈 is less than 1% of the country’s population or 272,049 people. In 2009, Singapore’s population of 沈 accounted for 0.9% of the city’s population or 23,800 people. In 2006, Hangzhou's population of 沈 was 3.09% of the city's population or 202,358 people.[5]
Although Chinese make up the largest part of America's Asian and Pacific Islander population,[6] none of the romanizations of "沈" appeared among the 1000 most common surnames during the AD 2000 US census although "shen" ranked #3690, "shum" ranked #13,730, "shim" ranked #7576, "tham" ranked #21,829.[7] In the 1990 US census however, "shen" ranked #10,565, "shum" ranked #22,632, "shim" ranked #9771, "tham" ranked #28,237.[8]
Family Clans
There are a multitude choronym (郡望) of 沈 family clans throughout East Asia such as the Cheongsong 沈/심 Korean clan and the Danzhutou 沈 Hakka clan in the Southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. Usually a Genealogy book (族谱) consists of a Generation name (字輩) and a generation number that coincides with that particular generation name. Altogether, a generation poem (派字歌) of up to 40 generation names could exist.
The generation poem for Danzhutou as depicted below.
士成肇光广，元会运其祥；(shi cheng zhao guang guang, yuan hui yun qi xiang)
谦恭登上达，和蔼显标扬；(qian gong deng shang da, he ai xian biao yang)
The generation poem for Cheongsong as depicted below.
지능의택상，섭재보규용；(ji neung ui taek sang, seop jae bo gyu yong)
As is common with Chinese surnames, the modern Shen family arose from various unrelated sources.
One origin traces it to the Shen (沈) kingdom in Runan County, Henan. These people were descended from Shao Hao, whose grandson was Zhuanxu's teacher and fathered Yun Ge and Tai Dai. Tai Dai was granted Shanxi for his achievements in controlling the flooding of the Yellow River and his descendants divided into four "kingdoms": the Shen, the Yi, the Ru, and the Huang. Electing not to participate in the northern kingdoms' campaign against Chu in 506 BC, Shen was invaded and destroyed by Cai. The rulers and vassals of the former state then bore the clan name Shen to distinguish themselves.
Another group descended from the rulers and vassals of the revived state of Shen after King Cheng granted it to the Zhou prince Ran Ji for suppressing the rebellion following the death of his brother King Wu.
The You clan (尤) is said to be a branch of the Shen clan, having simply removed the side-water radical 氵 from their surname sometime in the 10th century due to conflict with a different Shen (审) ruling family in Fujian Province.[1] Owing to this, the You and Shen continued to be unable to intermarry, just as if they were still a single clan.
The side-water radical (氵: shuǐ) plus (冘: yín) results in the Chinese character surname (沈: shěn).
This page lists people with the surnameShěn. If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name(s) to the link.
