Pronunciation | Sīmǎ (Pinyin) Su-má (Pe̍h-ōe-jī) |
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Language(s) | Chinese |
Origin | |
Language(s) | Chinese language |
Word/name | One of the offices of the Zhou dynasty's Three Excellencies |
Meaning | horse master |
Other names | |
Variant form(s) | Sima (Mandarin) Suma (Hokkien) Sma (English) |
See also | Szema |
Sima ([sɹ̩́mà], simplified Chinese: 司马; traditional Chinese: 司馬; pinyin: Sīmǎ; Wade–Giles: Ssu-ma) is a Chinese family name. It is one of the rare two-character Chinese family names; most Chinese family names consist of only a single character. It is an occupational surname, literally meaning "control" (sī) "horses" (mǎ), or "horse officer". The family name originated from one of the offices of the Zhou dynasty.