Ban is the Mandarin pinyin romanization of the Chinese surname written in Chinese character. It is romanized "Pan" in WadeâÂÂGiles. Ban is listed 235th in the Song dynasty classic text Hundred Family Surnames. It is not among the 300 most common surnames in China. In 2013 it was the 269th most common surname shared by 273,000 people, comprising 0.021% of the total population and the provincial level unit with the most people having the name being Guangxi.
The surname Ban originated from Mi èÂÂ, the royal surname of the State of Chu of ancient China. Dou Gouwutu (; fl. 7th century BC), a grandson of the Chu ruler Ruo'ao, was said to have been abandoned as an infant and nursed by a tigress. His given name Gouwutu, meant nursed (ç© gòu, milk) by a tiger (æ¼è wà «tú, tiger) in the Chu language. Dou Gouwutu grew up to become a general and the Prime Minister of Chu. His descendants adopted Ban (meaning "stripes", an allusion to tiger's stripes) as their surname.