Zi Collection, Middle Volume Radical: Person (rén) 佘; Kangxi stroke count: 7; Page: 99, entry 1 According to the Collection of Rhymes (Jiyun), it is pronounced zhe. The pronunciation is the same as the character for a city wall (dū). It is a surname. Upon investigation, in ancient times, only the character for remain (yú) existed, and the character for this surname (shé) did not. The character for remain (yú) has a variant pronunciation and should be read as zhe. The sound is the same as the character for snake (shé). This is also a surname. Yang Shen states: Currently, there are people who carry this surname, yet they incorrectly write it as this character (shé); these are people who do not understand the Analytical Dictionary of Characters (Shuowen Jiezi) and act out of misplaced cleverness. The character for remain (yú) is an abbreviated form of the character for cottage (shè). The sounds of the character for cottage (shè) and the character for snake (shé) are similar; therefore, the reading of zhe is correct. People from the Five Dynasties to the early Song dynasty referred to themselves as the Sha family, which proves that it is an approximate pronunciation of the Yu family. Furthermore, this can be known by the fact that the character for buy on credit (shē) takes the character for remain (yú) as its phonetic component.