Tsang
A Chinese surname most commonly linked to the Sinitic family of names written with characters such as 曾 or 仓/倉, depending on the family line and romanization system.
The #5,103 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 45,007 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Tsang is a romanized Chinese surname, not a single Western-language surname with one fixed etymology. In most cases it represents the Cantonese-style spelling of surnames written in Chinese characters such as 曾, and sometimes other characters in local or regional naming traditions. The literal meaning therefore depends on the specific character used by a given family line, but in surname use it functions primarily as a hereditary clan name rather than as a transparent common word.
History
The spelling Tsang is especially common among Cantonese-speaking families from southern China and in overseas Chinese communities that used older Hong Kong or Cantonese romanization. As with many Chinese surnames, the same romanized form may correspond to more than one Chinese character, so family history can differ from one Tsang line to another. In English-language records it became established through migration from Guangdong and neighboring regions, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
In modern romanization, one well-known surname written 曾 is usually rendered Zeng in pinyin, but older Cantonese-based systems often write it as Tsang.