Global InformationChinese surname information
Chinese surnames are used by Han Chinese and Sinicized ethnic groups in Greater China, Korea, Vietnam and among overseas Chinese communities around the world such as Singapore and Malaysia. Written Chinese names begin with surnames, unlike the Western tradition in which surnames are written last. Around 2,000 Han Chinese surnames are currently in use, but the great proportion of Han Chinese people use only a relatively small number of these surnames; 19 surnames are used by around half of the Han Chinese people, while 100 surnames are used by around 87% of the population.[1][2] A report in 2019 gives the most common Chinese surnames as Wang and Li, each shared by over 100 million people in China.[3] The remaining eight of the top ten most common Chinese surnames are Zhang, Liu, Chen, Yang, Huang, Zhao, Wu and Zhou.[4]
Two distinct types of Chinese surnames existed in ancient China, namely xing (Chinese: 姓; pinyin: xìng) ancestral clan names and shi (Chinese: 氏; pinyin: shì) branch lineage names. Later, the two terms began to be used interchangeably, and in the present day, xing refers to the surname and shi may refer either the clan or maiden name. The two terms may also be used together as xingshi for family names or surnames. Most Chinese surnames (xing) in current use were originally shi. The earliest xing surname might be matrilinear, but Han Chinese family name has been exclusively patrilineal for a couple of millennia, passing from father to children. This system of patrilineal surnames is unusual in the world in its long period of continuity and depth of written history, and Chinese people may view their surnames as part of their shared kinship and Han Chinese identity.[5] Women do not normally change their surnames upon marriage, except sometimes in places with more western influences such as Hong Kong. Traditionally Chinese surnames have been exogamous in that people tend to marry those with different surnames.[6][7]
The most common Chinese surnames were compiled in the Song dynasty work Hundred Family Surnames, which lists over 400 names. The colloquial expressions lǎobǎixìng (老百姓; lit. "old hundred surnames") and bǎixìng (百姓, lit. "hundred surnames") are used in Chinese to mean "ordinary folks", "the people", or "commoners".
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
duwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Emma Woo Louie (2008). Chinese American Names: Tradition and Transition. McFarland & Co. p. 35. ISBN 978-0786438778.
- ^ Butcher, Asa (31 January 2019). "Wang is the most common surname in China". GBTimes. Archived from the original on 8 August 2019. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
- ^ Ministry of Public Security Household Registration Administration Research Centre (公安部户政管理研究中心) (8 February 2021). 石璐言 (ed.). 《二〇二〇年全国姓名报告》发布 ["2020 national report on personal names" published] (in Chinese). gov.cn. Archived from the original on 8 February 2021. Retrieved 24 July 2022.
- ^ Ebrey, Patricia (1996). "Surnames and Han Chinese Identity". In Melissa Brown (ed.). Negotiating Ethnicities in China and Taiwan (PDF). pp. 11–36.
- ^ Chinese Society in Singapore, The Study of Chinese Society: Essays, Maurice Freedman, George William Skinner, Stanford University Press, 1979, pp. 133
- ^ The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, Volume 38; Volume 101, Harry Houdini Collection, John Davis Batchelder Collection, Leavitt, Trow, & Company, 1883 p. 852