The story
- Mandarin · borrowed from宮保 /宫保“palatial guardian”
- English todaykung pao
From Wade–Giles romanization of Mandarin 宮保 /宫保 (kung¹-pao³, “palatial guardian”), the title of Ding Baozhen, a late Qing Dynasty official born in Guizhou.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.