shēn 申

### Migration and Distribution The Shen (申) surname originated in present-day Nanyang, Henan. In the early Spring and Autumn Period, the Shen State was quickly annexed by the powerful State of Chu. It is very likely that the descendants of Boyi soon adopted the name of the state as their surname, becoming the Shen clan. According to many scholars, there were many people with the Shen surname in the State of Chu during the pre-Qin era, presumably for this very reason. During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, there was a gathering of famous people with the Shen surname. The main representatives included Shen Bo, Shen Buhai, Shen Yu, Shen Zhou, Shen Xi, Shen Li, Shen Kuai, Shen Cheng, Shen Shuyi, etc. These famous figures were distributed across the states of Lu, Zheng, Chu, Han, Jin, and Wu, indicating that the Shen clan was already spread across present-day Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Hubei, Hebei, and Jiangsu at that time. In the Western Han Dynasty, there were still many famous people with the Shen surname. It is necessary to mention Shen Dang from Yueyang (now Liyang, Jiangsu) and Shen Shuo from Cangwu (now in Guangxi), which shows that by this time, some people with the Shen surname had moved to the southernmost part of the motherland - Guangxi. From this period to the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Shen clan members from Donghai recorded in historical records were Shen Xian, Shen Zhuan, and Shen Jun, laying the foundation for the formation of the Langya County's prominent Shen clan in the later period. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Shen Yi entered Sichuan. The period of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties was a crucial stage in the development history of the Shen clan. During this period, the three major prominent lineages in the history of the Shen clan - the Weijun, Langya, and Danyang lineages - began to form and gradually prospered, strongly promoting the development of the Shen clan in the provinces that covered these lineages, such as Hebei, Shandong, and Anhui. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, a branch of the Shen clan migrated from Hubei to Shaozhou (now Shaoyang, Hunan), and another branch moved from Danyang to Xinzhou (now in Jiangxi). From the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms to the Song Dynasty, the Shen clan members were widely distributed across the southern provinces such as Jiangsu, Hubei, Hunan, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Sichuan. In the early Ming Dynasty, the Shen clan from Shanxi was one of the surnames of the migrants from Hongtong Big Pagoda Tree. They were resettled in present-day Henan, Hebei, Shandong, Beijing, Tianjin, etc. At this time, some people with the Shen surname had moved to present-day Fujian, Guangdong, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Guangxi. In the early Qing Dynasty, some people from the Shen clan in Fujian and Guangdong began to move to Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Europe, and America. Also, some from Henan and Shandong moved to Northeast China. Today, the Shen surname is widely distributed across the country, especially in Henan and Shandong. The Shen clan in these two provinces accounts for about 43% of the total Han people with the Shen surname in the country. The Shen surname ranks 123rd among the Chinese surnames today, with a relatively large population, accounting for about 0.11% of the total Han population in the country.