This is a famous Chinese surname. It translates as 'Journey to complete' and like many if not the majority of (sur)names of Asia and the Orient is 'ornamental'. That is to say that it depicts a more perfect existence. In the ancient past, the rulers and priests of the continent decided that names should be pleasureable, and should represent an abstract form of life, or even the after life. This is generally the opposite attitude to European surnames which with some German exceptions tend to be both distinctive, tribal, and secular. This particular name Cheng probably represents the great journey of the after life, of which the present existence is just an unpleasant begining. What we are not able to do with Chinese and Asian surnames is to give ancient recordings. This either because they do not exist, which is often the case because fixed spelling hereditary surnames have only recently become accepted in many Asian countries, or because when they do exist, it is in a form which has not been translated into the Romanish alphabet. This name is widely recorded in the USA, but again only since about 1900, and even later in European countries.

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