Guanqiu Jian - Name

Name

Guanqiu Jian's name is often read as Wuqiu Jian (毋丘儉), and appears as such as chapter 73 of Sima Guang's Zizhi Tongjian. However, Chinese scholar Wu Jinhua (吳金華) has argued recently that the original reading was Muqiu 母丘 (also alternatively written as Wuqiu 毋丘 and Manqiu 曼丘), and that Guanqiu 毌丘 was a later transcription error from the Tang-Song period. He supports his argument with the occurrence of Muqiu as a family name on a tomb stele from the Wei period and also in the Ri Zhi Lu (日知錄) by early Qing scholar Gu Yanwu; as well as the occurrence of Wuqiu as a surname on an ancient seal and a bamboo strip from the Yinwan (尹灣) Han-period tomb excavated in 1993. Wu also points out that a general named Manqiu Chen (曼丘臣) is mentioned in part 2 of the Book of Han reign chronicle of Emperor Gaozu of Han, and that the Tang-period Yan Shigu annotation to this name states "Manqiu and Muqiu were originally the same family name". Unfortunately, no definite conclusions can be made from the evidence since Guanqiu, Muqiu, Wuqiu, and Manqiu all no longer exist as family names in China. However, the existence of multiple but similar-sounding versions of the same family name suggests that they were all transliterations of a word from another language.