Honan

See also: honan, hönan, and Ho-nan

English

Etymology 1

Map including part of HONAN PROVINCE 河南省 (AMS, 1954)

From the Postal Romanization of the Nanking court dialect Mandarin 河南 (Hénán, literally “[land] south of the river”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: hōʹnǎnʹ

Proper noun

Honan

1. (dated) Alternative form of Henan, in its various senses.
   • 1671, Arnoldus Montanus, translated by John Ogilby, Atlas Chinensis‎^[1], London: Tho. Johnson, translation of original in Dutch, →OCLC, page 507:

     THe fifth Province of Honan, hath receiv'd its Name from the Situation of the place, for Honan ſignifies The South ſide of a River ; for it lies on the South Shore of the Yellow River, which flowing from Eaſt to Weſt, ſeparates it from the Province of Xanſi and Peking, though to the Eaſt, toward the ſide of Peking it hath ſome Towns.

   • 1693, Robert Morden, “Of China”, in Geography Rectified; or a Description of the World‎^[2], 3rd edition, pages 439–440:

     The Province of Honan, by the Chineſes thought to lie in the middle of the World, becauſe it lies in the midſt of China ; it is divided into nine Territories or Countries, having one hundred and eight Cities.

   • 1701, Joan Luyts, Herman Moll, A System of Geography, Part the Second‎^[3], London, →OCLC, page 48:

     The Province of Honan lies on both ſides the River Hoang, and (according to the Opinion of the Inhabitants) in the Centre of the Terreſtrial Globe ; abounding with Rivulets and all manner of Delights, the Air being very Temperate, and the Soil exceeding fruitful : Inſomuch that it is reputed a kind of Paradiſe by the Chineſes, and upon that Account it was heretofore choſen at ſeveral times, for the Seat of the Imperial Court : It is divided into nine Parts, whoſe chief Towns are Hoaiking ; Honan ; Caifung, the Capital City ; Changto ; Queite ; Guihoei ; Juning ; and Nanyang ; a hundred more principal Cities ſtand in this Province.

   • 1913, Rev. Murdoch Mackenzie, D.D., Twenty-five Years in Honan‎^[4], Toronto: Hunter-Rose Co., page 1:

     "THE MIDDLE KINGDOM" was one of the earliest names given by the Chinese to designate the land which they inhabited. The use of this name with reference to China dates from the period of the Chow dynasty, about B.C. 1150. The Imperial family gave the name to its own state Honan, because it was central to all the other states. As the empire grew the name remained and for many centuries this was one of the titles given by the natives to the entire territory ruled by their Emperor. China was believed to be central to all other nations, Honan was central in China, and it was easy to conclude that the Chinese were the most important people of the world. During the eventful millenniums of China's chequered history, rulers and statesmen deemed it wise no fewer than seventeen times to change the situation of the nation's capital. It says something for the importance of Honan that seven times out of the seventeen the honour of having one of its cities chosen as capital feel to this province.

   • 1965, Margaret Medley, A Handbook of Chinese Art for Collectors and Students‎^[5], Horizon Press Publishers, page 71:

     Ju is an imperial ware of the Sung Dynasty, that takes its name from the district in Honan where it was first developed; the kiln site has not yet been firmly identified. The ware is generally believed to have been made for the Northern Sung court only from A.D. 1107 to 1127, the latter date coinciding with the enforced withdrawal of the court to Hang-chou in the south, as the result of the Chin Tartar invasion from the north.

   • 1980, Helmut Brinker, Eberhard Fischer, Treasures from the Rietberg Museum‎^[6], →ISBN, page 132:

     Perhaps the most important monument of Chinese Buddhist sculpture in the Rietberg collection, this stele was acquired by Baron von der Heydt before 1924, after having been in the possession of C.T. Loo, Paris. It is most likely the work of a metropolitan sculptor's atelier located in the vicinity of present Cheng-chou in Honan Province.

   • 1982, Thomas Lawton, Chinese Art of the Warring States Period‎^[7], Smithsonian Institution, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 24:

     More recently, a Chʻu tomb at Hsi-chʻuan, Honan Province, dated to the Spring and Autumn period, has yielded several bronze vessels with decoration that suggests to the authors of the archaeological report that they might have been cast by the lost-wax method (see WW, no. 10 [1980]: 21-26, especially p. 23, pls. 1-2).

   • 1983 November 20, “Fighter Pilot Reaches Freedom In ROC”, in Free China Weekly‎^[8], volume XXIV, number 46, Taipei, page 1:

     Wang, a native of Honan Province, told government officials he had taken off from an airfield in Taishan, an island 75 miles southeast of Shanghai on the east coast of mainland China.
     . . .
     As the news of the freedom flight hit the streets of Taiwan, rounds of firecrackers could be heard exploding throughout the cities, and residents put up posters to both announce the news and express their welcome for the young pilot from Honan Province.

   • 1989, Yoshikawa Kōjirō, translated by John Timothy Wixted, Five Hundred Years of Chinese Poetry, 1150-1650‎^[9], Princeton University Press, page 35:

     It was about this time that Emperor Ai-tsung, who had fled Kai-feng in hopes of mounting a counteroffensive, committed suicide in Tsʻai-chou, Honan.

   • 2022 January 3, Dishan Joseph, “Understanding Chinese heritage and culture”, in Daily Mail‎^[10], archived from the original on 02 January 2022:

     The central territory of the Shang realm lay in north-western Honan, alongside the Shansi Mountains and extending into the plains. It was a peasant civilization with towns. The Shang state had its centre in northern Honan, north of the Yellow river.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Honan.

Etymology 2

Reduced Anglicized form of Irish Ó hEoghanáin (“descendant of Eoghanán”), a personal name derived from a diminutive of Eoghan.

Proper noun

Honan (plural Honans)

1. A surname from Irish.

Statistics

• According to the 2010 United States Census, Honan is the 24305^th most common surname in the United States, belonging to 1032 individuals. Honan is most common among White (94.57%) individuals.

Further reading

• Hanks, Patrick, editor (2003), “Honan”, in Dictionary of American Family Names, volume 2, New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 198.
• “Honan, pn.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “Honan”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “Honan” in TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2024.