骆 (Luò): surname Luo

Meanings

1 surname Luo
2 (archaic) white horse with a black mane
3 (in compounds) camel — see 骆驼

Characters

骆

luò

surname; (archaic) black-maned white horse

Examples

我们老师姓骆。

Wǒmen lǎoshī xìng Luò.

Our teacher's surname is Luo.

骆驼能在沙漠中长时间不喝水。

Luòtuo néng zài shāmò zhōng cháng shíjiān bù hē shuǐ.

Camels can go without water for long stretches in the desert.

Tips

memory

Look at the radical: 马 (horse) — that's your hook. The original meaning was a specific kind of white horse with a black mane. Today most learners meet it inside 骆驼 (luòtuo, camel). Tang poet 骆宾王 (Luò Bīnwáng), one of the 'Four Heroes of Early Tang', is the most famous bearer of the surname.

Components

radical

马 mǎ

horse

马 depicts a horse with mane and legs. As radical it marks 骆 as belonging to the horse-and-large-quadruped family — joining 驴骡驼 — even though a camel is not literally a horse, the radical groups all riding/pack mammals.

phonetic

各 gè

each; every

各 supplies the sound (gè drifted to luò). The same phonetic powers 路络落烙. In 骆驼 (camel) it pairs with 驼 to form a disyllabic loanword — characters chosen for their sound shape rather than meaning.