Tuoba (??;
pinyin Tuòbá) or
T'o-pa in
Wade-Giles was a
clan of the
Xianbei people in the early centuries of the 1st millennium AD. They established the
State of Dai from
310 to
376 AD, and the
Northern Wei Dynasty from
386 to
536 AD. Distribution of Xianbei people ranged from present day
Manchuria to
Mongolia, and the Tuoba clan was one of the largest clans among western Xianbei clans, ranging from present day
Shanxi province and westward and northwestward. Tuoba clan was awarded by Chinese rulers as the leader of western Xianbei clans (????) and its people adopted their clan name as their surname.
The name was originally Tabgach (as attested to in the Orhun inscriptions in the Göktürk language), and most likely meant "earth-origined" (as in toprak), or "round" (as in Topkapi) in Turkish. The Chinese surname Yuan was later adopted by the Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei to replace Tuoba, and approximates the meanings of "origin" or "round" in the Chinese language.
The Tuoba states of Dai and Northern Wei also claimed to possess the quality of earth in the Chinese five element analogy.
¹ Tuoba Family was the ruling family of Northern Wei Dynasty, founded by Tuoba Gui, then Emperor Daowu. Hence the rulers of Northern Wei Dynasty will start with him, not as a continuation of this table.
