The Yugur Ethnic Group’s surname of all the heads is “An”

In history, the Yuku nationality had ever kept the old tribe (also called as “family”) organization for a long time, and each tribe was composed of some clans. Round about the founding of the new China, the Yuku nationality had totally 10 tribes and 29 clans. The name of each clan played the role of “surname”. Therefore, the Yuku nationality had 29 traditional surnames. The current single character Han surnames of the Yuku nationality are all the transliteration or free translation of these 29 surnames of their own nationality, such as Anzhang—An, Suogale—Suo and Tuo’eshi—Tuo, and so on. Among them, “An” is a big surname. For the surname of all the big heads that governed all the tribes and the heads of all tribes in the past was all “An”, it was said that “the surname of all the heads is ‘An'”. 

About the source of the surname “An”, an interesting legend spreads among the people of the Yuku nationality: long long ago, the Yuku nationality migrated to a new place. The prince gathered all the people to discuss matters and wanted to assign some person to the capital and meet the king to get something done, but many people were timid and did not dare to go. At that time, a brave youth who was proficient in riding said: “I will go”, and put forward a request to the prince: “I will go to call on the king, if he kills me, please forget me; if I get the things done, please let me be a head.” The prince agreed to his request. Then, this youth rode a horse and went to the capital, and met the king and reported all the details of the matter. The king appreciated his talent and solved the matter for him. On departure, the king asked about his surname, the youth could not understand him, and just patted the saddle, whipped the horse and left. The king mistakenly thought that his surname was “An” (euphony with “saddle” in Chinese), so he granted him as “An” head. After this youth returned back to his tribe, all the people rushed to welcome him from all directions one after another, he told the process of meeting the king to the prince and folks. The prince also kept his promise and granted the titles of head to him and his brothers. He totally had 7 brothers, and they respectively led 7 tribes, which were called as 7 clans. After that, the surname of all the 7 clans were changed as “An”.  

The surname of “An” of the Yuku nationality can be traced back to the Huihu people in the Five Dynasties and the Northern Song Dynasty, such as An Yanshang, An Tieshan, An Jin and An Dianmin, etc. All these Huihu people were the Huihu officials of Gan Prefecture appointed according to the imperial order of the Five Dynasties and the Northern Song Dynasty, which showed that the surname of “An” had a long history.