Chien is a romanisation of multiple

Chinese surname Chinese surnames are used by Han Chinese and Sinicization, Sinicized ethnic groups in Greater China, Korea, Vietnam and among overseas Chinese communities around the world such as Singapore and Malaysia. Written Chinese names begin with surnames, ...

s and

Chinese given name Chinese given names () are the given names adopted by speakers of the Chinese language, both in majority-Sinophone countries and among the Chinese diaspora. Description Chinese given names are almost always made up of one or - usually - two chara ...

Given name

Angela Yu Chien Angela Yu Chien (; 1942 – 10 April 2000)Hong Kong CinemagicAngela Yu Chien/ref> was a China-born Hong Kong actress. Biography Yu was born in 1942, in Beijing. She moved to Taiwan with her family at age five. In 1960, she moved to Hong Kong a ...

(; 1942–2004), Hong Kong actress * Chien Yao (; born 1961), Taiwanese lyricist *

Chien Lee Chien Lee () is a Chinese-American entrepreneur, investor, and sports team owner. He has built a multi-club ownership model, owns multiple professional European Association football, football clubs and is a well-known investor in European footbal ...

, American entrepreneur and sports team owner

Surname

Origins and statistics

As a surname, Chien is the

Wade–Giles Wade–Giles ( ) is a romanization system for Mandarin Chinese. It developed from the system produced by Thomas Francis Wade during the mid-19th century, and was given completed form with Herbert Giles's '' A Chinese–English Dictionary'' ...

romanisation of a number of surnames spelled Jian in

Hanyu Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means ' Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin'' literally ...

, as well as a variant spelling of surnames spelled Qian in Pinyin (Ch'ien in Wade Giles): * Jiǎn (), adopted as a surname by some descendants of , who was later named Xu Jianpo (). *Jiǎn (), which originated as an

occupational surname In many societies, a surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full name of a person, although several give ...

from (), a

Han dynasty The Han dynasty was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC9 AD, 25–220 AD) established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206 BC ...

post which could be translated as "Inspector General". Additionally some bearers of this surname changed their surname to the Jiǎn described above, which is

homophonous A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning or in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (past tense of "rise"), or spelled differently, a ...

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...

, though not in other

varieties of Chinese There are hundreds of local Chinese language varieties forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan language family, many of which are not Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the m ...

. * Qián (), literally meaning "money", also originated as an occupational surname, said to have been adopted by a holder of the post of treasurer () during the

Zhou dynasty The Zhou dynasty ( ) was a royal dynasty of China that existed for 789 years from until 256 BC, the longest span of any dynasty in Chinese history. During the Western Zhou period (771 BC), the royal house, surnamed Ji, had military ...

. *Qiān () Data compiled by

Patrick Hanks Patrick Wyndham Hanks (24 March 1940 – 1 February 2024) was an English lexicographer, corpus linguist, and onomastician. He edited dictionaries of general language, as well as dictionaries of personal names. Background Hanks was educated a ...

on the basis of the

2011 United Kingdom census A Census in the United Kingdom, census of the population of the United Kingdom is taken every ten years. The 2011 census was held in all countries of the UK on 27 March 2011. It was the first UK census which could be completed online via the Inter ...

and the

Census of Ireland 2011 The 2011 census of Ireland was held on Sunday, 10 April 2011. It was administered by the Central Statistics Office of Ireland and found the population to be 4,588,252 people.

found 49 people with the surname Chien on the island of

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

and none on the island of

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. The

1881 United Kingdom census The United Kingdom Census of 1881 recorded the people residing in every household on the night of Sunday 3 April 1881, and was the fifth of the Census in the United Kingdom, UK censuses to include details of household members. Data recorded Detail ...

found one person with the surname Chien. The 2010 United States Census found 3,756 people with the surname Chien, making it the 8,732nd-most-common name in the country. This represented an increase from 3,239 (9,257th-most-common) in the 2000 Census. In both censuses, more than nine-tenths of the bearers of the surname identified as Asian, and roughly three per cent as

non-Hispanic white Non-Hispanic Whites, also referred to as White Anglo Americans or Non-Latino Whites, are White Americans who are classified by the United States census as "White" and not of Hispanic or Latino origin. According to annual estimates from the Unit ...

People

Entertainers

* Lung Chien (; 1916–1975), Chinese film director *

Chien Te-men Chien Te-men (, 28 August 1943 – 5 February 2018) was a Taiwanese actor of Mongol descent. Selected filmography *'' New Legend of Madame White Snake'' (1992) as Fahai. *''The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber'' (1994). *'' Spicy Teacher'' (2000 ...

(; 1943–2018), Taiwanese actor * Fernando Chien (born 1974), Taiwanese stunt performer *

Jolin Chien Jolin Chien (; born April 4, 1986) is a Taiwanese people, Taiwanese singer, actor and model. Formerly went by Samuel Chien, He was discovered while competing in a singing competition. He is a former member of the boy duo band StyLe and current co- ...

(; born 1986), Taiwanese singer * Dewi Chien (; born 1992), Taiwanese actress

Politicians

Robert Chien Robert Chien, or Chien Chun (; February 8, 1929 – March 2, 2014), was a Taiwanese economist and politician. Chien graduated from the National Taiwan University with a bachelor's degree in economics and later on earned a master's degree from the ...

(; 1929–2014), Taiwanese economist and politician * Frederick Chien (; born 1935), Taiwanese diplomat *

Chien Tai-lang Chien Tai-lang (; born 15 February 1947) is a Taiwanese politician. He was the Secretary-General of the Executive Yuan from 2015 to 2016. Education Chien obtained his bachelor's degree in sociology from National Chung Hsing University in 1970 a ...

(; born 1947), Taiwanese politician * Chien Tung-ming (; born 1951), Taiwanese politician * Eugene Chien (; born 1946), Taiwanese politician and diplomat * Chien Hsi-chieh (; born 1947), Taiwanese politician *

Chien Chung-liang Chien Chung-liang () is a Taiwanese pathologist. He was the Deputy Minister of Science and Technology from 2006 to 2014. Education Chien obtained his bachelor's degree in zoology in 1984 and master's degree in anatomy in 1989 from National Ta ...

(; ), Taiwanese politician

Scientists

Robert Tienwen Chien Robert Tienwen Chien (; November 20, 1931 – December 8, 1983) was an American computer scientist concerned largely with research in information theory, fault-tolerance, and artificial intelligence (AI), director of the Coordinated Science Labo ...

(; 1931–1983), American computer scientist *

Shu Chien Shu Chien (; born June 23, 1931) is a Taiwanese-American physiology, physiologist and bioengineer. His work on the fluid dynamics of blood flow has had a major impact on the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases such as atheroscle ...

(; born 1931), American physiologist * Paul Chien (born 1947), American biologist

Sportspeople

* Chien Kok-ching (; ), Taiwanese baseball player * Chien Wei-chuan (; born 1971), Taiwanese basketball player * Chien Yu-hsiu (; born 1980), Taiwanese badminton player * Chien Yu-chin (; born 1982), Taiwanese badminton player

Other

* John C. T. Chien (; 1940–2013), Taiwanese Episcopalian bishop * Raymond Chien (; born 1952), Hong Kong businessman * Carl Chien (; born 1964), Taiwanese businessman * Sansan Chien (; 1967–2011), Taiwanese composer * Chien Wen-pin (; born 1971), Taiwanese conductor *

Colleen V. Chien Colleen V. Chien (born September 10, 1973) is an Asian-American legal scholar who is a law professor at UC Berkeley School of Law, where she teaches, mentors students, and conducts cross-disciplinary research on innovation, intellectual property, ...

(born 1973), American law professor * Hank Chien (born 1974), American plastic surgeon who formerly held a world record score in the video game ''Donkey Kong'' * Chien Shan-hua (; ), Taiwanese musicologist *

Alec Chien Alec Chien is a pianist from Hong Kong. Born in Hong Kong, Chien earned bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees at The Juilliard School, Juilliard where he studied under Adele Marcus. He was prized at the II Sydney International Piano Compet ...

(), Hong Kong pianist * Catia Chien (), Brazilian children's book illustrator

References

{{given name, type=both Multiple Chinese surnames