Origin of Surname PAN

Origin of Pan*, Poon*
The 52nd most common last name in China. There are two main sources of this last name.

1) Descendents of Ji Sun, a son of Zhou Wen Wang? 15th son Bi Gong Gao. Ji was made the duke of Pan in north of Shaanxi, and his descendents are known as the Pans.

2) Came from the last name Mi, a noble family of the Chu kingdom. Later, the Mis changed their name to Pan. Among their descendents, there was a person called Pan Chong. Pan was a judge in the Chu kingdom. When the king Chu Cheng Wang decided to give his throne to his younger son instead, Pan helped the older price, Shang Chen, to seize the throne. This led to the suicide of Zhou Cheng Wang. Because of his contribution, Shang Chen gave Pan the title of the "King? Teacher", and gave him all the wealth that he had accumulated when he was a prince. The Pan family thus had a very high social status in the Chu kingdom.

Hometown: 20 miles east of Wei, in Hebei Province.

Famous People in History
Three Kingdoms- Pan Zhang (general)
Dong Han- Pan Xu (right prime minister)
Song Dynasty- Pan Mei (prime minister); Pan Jin Lian


Note by Judith : I copied the information here just for reference.  It is interesting to learn that the name Pan Mei did appeared during the Song Dynasty who was a prime minister then!  Origin of information is from http://www.yutopian.com/names/14/14pan52.html

潘美 http://army.tom.com 2001年03月26日 来源:军科


宋初名将。字仲询。大名(今河北大名东北)人。初事周世宗柴荣,补供奉官,高平之战后，迁西上标门副使。后拥立赵匡胤称帝建立宋朝。开宝三年(970),以贺州道兵马行营都部署,率十州兵攻南汉。9月，围贺州(今广西贺县东南),闻南汉援军将至，佯退20里,以奇兵于南乡(今贺县南信都)设伏，大败南汉援军万余，遂克贺州。继而转兵攻韶州(今广东韶关)，以强弓劲弩破南汉军象阵，击败其主力10余万，克韶州。四年二月，率军与南汉军6万对峙于广州城北马迳,遣军夜焚其营，乘火急攻,俘斩万计,继趋广州灭南汉。授山南东道节度使。七年，任昇州西南面行营都监，与行营马步军战棹都部署曹彬率军由江陵顺江而下攻南唐。八年正月，宋军进抵秦淮河，舟楫未备，率部涉水抢渡，会大军击江宁(今南京)城下的10余万南唐水陆军,杀获甚众，后与诸军加紧攻城，十一月破城,灭南唐，以功擢宣徽北院使。雍熙三年(986)，宋与契丹岐沟关之战中,任西路军统帅，与副帅杨业，率军连克寰(今山西朔州东)、朔及云、应(今大同、应县)等州。七月,契丹军主力反击时，与监军王侁不纳杨业建策，并强令其出战，又违约不予接应，致使杨业全军覆没。因罪削秩三等，后复官。淳化二年，加同平章事，同年卒。