Chinese surname

A Chinese surname, family name or clan name (pinyin: shì), is one of the hundreds or thousands of s that have been historically used by  and   in, , and among  communities. The colloquial expressions lao bai xing (老百姓; lit. "old hundred surnames"), or bǎi xìng (, lit. "hundred surnames") are used in Chinese to mean "ordinary folks", "the people," or "commoners." Bǎi jiā xìng is also used to call the list of one hundred most common surnames.

Chinese family names are, passed from father to children. (In cases of adoption, the adoptee usually also takes the same surname.) Chinese women, after marriage, typically retain their birth surname. Historically, however, only Chinese men possessed xìng (family name), in addition to shì; the women had only the latter, and took on their husband's xìng after marriage.

Origin of surnames
Prior to the (5th century BC), only the royal family and the aristocratic elite could generally take surnames. Historically there was also difference between xing and shi. Xing were surnames held by the immediate royal family. They generally are composed of a nü (女, meaning "female") radical which suggests that they originated from societies based on maternal lineages. Another hypothesis has been proposed by sinologist Léon Vandermeersch upon observation of the evolution of characters in oracular scripture from the through the. The "female" radical seems to appear at the Zhou period next to Shang indicating an ethnic group or a tribe. This combination seems to designate specifically a female and could mean "lady of such or such clan". The structure of the xing sinogram could reflect the fact that in the royal court of Zhou, at least in the beginning, only females (wives married into the Zhou family from other clans) were called by their birth clan name, while the men were usually designated by their title or fief.

Prior to the (3rd century BC) China was largely a  society. As fiefdoms were divided and subdivided among descendants, so additional sub-surnames known as shi were created to distinguish between different seniority of lineages among the nobles though in theory they shared the same ancestor. In this way, a nobleman would hold a shi and a xing. After the states of China were unified by in, surnames gradually devolved to the lower classes and the difference between xing and shi blurred.

Shi surnames, many of which survive to the present day, generally share twelve paths of origin:


 * 1) From xing: These were usually reserved for the central lineage of the royal family, with collateral lineages taking their own shi. Of the six or so common xing, only  (姜) and  (姚) have survived as frequently occurring surnames.
 * 2) From royal decree by the Emperor, such as  (鄺).
 * 3) From state names: Many commoners took the name of their state, either to show their continuing allegiance or as a matter of national and ethnic identity. Common examples include  (宋),  (吴/吳),  (陈/陳). Not surprisingly, due to the population size of the peasantry, these are some of the most common Chinese surnames.
 * 4) From the name of fiefs or place of origin. Fiefdoms were often granted to collateral branches of the aristocracy and it was natural as part of the process of sub-surnaming for their names to be used. An example is Di, Marquis of Ouyangting, whose descendants took the surname . There are some two hundred examples of this identified, often of two-character surnames, but few have survived to the present.
 * 5) From the names of ancestors: Like the previous example, this was also a common origin with close to 500 or 600 examples, 200 of which are two-character surnames. Often an ancestor's  would be used. For example,  took the second character of his grandfather's style name Boyuan (伯爰) as his surname. Sometimes titles granted to ancestors could also be taken as surnames.
 * 6) From seniority within the family: In ancient usage, the characters of meng (孟), zhong (仲), shu (叔) and ji (季) were used to denote the first, second, third and fouth eldest sons in a family. These were sometimes adopted as surnames. Of these,  is the best known, being the surname of philosopher, for example.
 * 7) From occupation: These could arise from both official positions, as in the case of  (司马/司馬), originally akin to "Minister of War". They could also arise from more lowly occupations, as with  (陶), meaning "potter" or  (巫), meaning "shaman".
 * 8) From ethnic groups: Non-Chinese peoples in China sometimes took the name of their ethnic group as surname. The best example is  (胡), which originally referred to all "barbarian" groups on the northern frontier of China.

Distribution of surnames
Surnames are not evenly distributed throughout China's geography. In northern China, Wang (王) is the most common surname, being shared by 9.9% of the population. Next are Li (李), Zhang (张/張) and Liu (刘/劉). In the south, Chen (陈/陳) is the most common, being shared by 10.6% of the population. Next are Li (李), Huang (黄), Lin (林) and Zhang (张/張). Around the major crossing points of the, the most common surname is Li (李), taking up 7.7%, followed by Wang (王), Zhang (张/張), Chen (陈/陳) and Liu (刘/劉).

A 1987 study showed over 450 family names in common use in, but there were fewer than 300 family names in Fujian.

A study by  has found that of all the people with a particular surname, there tends to be a population concentration in a certain province, as tabled to the right. It does not show, however, the most common surnames in any one province.

The 55th most common family name "Xiao"  appears to be very rare in. This is explained by the fact Hong Kong uses s not s. Originally, the surname 蕭 (Xiao) was rather common while the surname 肖 (Xiao) was extremely rare, if not non-existent (it is mentioned only sporadically in historical texts). The first round of simplification in 1956 simplified 蕭 into 萧, keeping 蕭/萧 and 肖 distinct. However the in 1977, which has long been abolished, merged 萧 and 肖 into 肖. Despite the retraction of the second round, some people have kept 肖 as their surname, so that there are now two separate surnames, 萧 and 肖.

Chén (trad, simp ) is perhaps the most common surname in and  (romanized as Chan) and is also common in  (romanized as Chen). Fang, which is only the 47th most common overall, is much more common in 's Chinatown in the (more often romanized as Fong based on the Cantonese dialect). As with the concentration of family names, this can also be explained statistically, as a person with an uncommon name could move to an unsettled area and leave this family name to large numbers of people.

After the Song Dynasty, surname distributions in China largely stabilised. The family for example, stabilized in Guangdong during the revolts of the Song Dynasty and migrated from the capital in the north. Villages were often made up of individuals with the same surname, often with a common male ancestor. They usually intermarried with nearby villages, creating clusters of individuals with similar genetic background.

Surnames at present
Of the thousands of surnames which have been identified from historical texts prior to the, most have either been lost or simplified. In recent centuries some two-character surnames have often dropped a character. Since the founding of the, moreover, some surnames have been graphically simplified.

Although there are thousands of Chinese family names, the 100 most common surnames, which together make up less than 5% of those in existence, are shared by 85% of the population. The three most common surnames in Mainland China are, and , which make up 7.9%, 7.4% and 7.1% respectively. Together they number close to 300 million and are easily the most common surnames in the world.

In a 1990 study, the top 200 family names accounted for over 96% of a random sample of 174,900 persons, with over 500 other names accounting for the remaining 4%. In a different study (1987), which combined data from Taiwan and mainland China (sample size of 570,000 persons), the top 19 names covered 55.6%, and the top 100 names covered 87% of the sample. Other data suggest that the top 50 names comprise 70% of the population.

Most commonly occurring Chinese family names have only one character; however, about twenty have survived into the modern time. These include (, simp. ),  (, simp. ),  (, simp., occasionally romanized as O'Young, giving some Anglophones an  impression), and  (or Sito ). There are family names with three or more characters, but those are not ethnically Han Chinese. For example, Aixinjueluo (, also romanized from the Manchu language as ), was the family name of the royal family of the.

of Chinese family names (see ) into foreign languages poses a number of problems. Chinese surnames are shared by people speaking a number of dialects and languages which often have different pronunciations of their surnames. The into all parts of the world resulted in the  of the surnames based on different languages. As a result, it is common for the same surname to be transliterated differently. In certain dialects, different surnames could be so it is common for family names to appear ambiguous when transliterated. Example: 鄭/郑 (pinyin:Zheng) can be romanised into Chang, Cheng, Chung, Teh, Tay, Tee, Zeng or Zheng, (in, Chang, Cheng, Zheng and Zeng are all different names).

Examples of variations in romanisation
Due to the different pronunciation and romanisations, it is generally able to tell whether a Chinese person has origins in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Southeast Asia including, and. In general people from mainland China, and the younger generation from Singapore will have surnames in. Those from Taiwan in romanisation. People from Southeast Asia and Hong Kong usually base their romanisation on, and  dialects.

There are also people who use non-standard romanisations, eg the Hong Kong 邵逸夫  's surname 邵 is spelt as Shaw, pinyin: Shao. The use of different systems of romanisation based on different Chinese language variants during the 1900~1970 also contributed to the variations.

Eg. Malaysia/Singapore/Indonesia: some people use Pinyin or other spellings depends on their origin. Please refer to the for the different spellings and more examples.

Usage
In writing s, Chinese family names are placed before the given name, e.g. Cheung Kwok Wing. Hence the Western concept of first name and last name only creates confusion when used with Chinese names. In Westernized Asian countries or for those residing in the West, often a Western name is chosen, e.g. (張國榮). When the Western name and Chinese name are put together, it often becomes hard to tell what the family name is. Using Leslie Cheung as an example, some variants include:


 * Zhāng Guóróng &mdash; China, transcription using official system, which   pronunciation of Chinese characters and adds   markers.
 * Cheung Kwok-wing &mdash; China (Cantonese-speaking), romanization of pronunciation of Chinese characters.
 * Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing &mdash; Hong Kong, hybrid of Western/Chinese.
 * Leslie Kwok-wing Cheung &mdash; United States among others, use the Chinese given name 'Kwok-wing' as.

Some publications and legal documents will print the family name in small capital letters to allow it to be easily distinguished, e.g. Leslie Cheung Kwok Wing. When no official romanisation exists, translators often will use the transliteration best fit with the locale where the person is originated. For example, the pinyin transcription would be used for a person from Mainland China; for someone from Taiwan; or a Cantonese-based romanisation for someone from Hong Kong.

Chinese women usually retain their maiden names after marriage. Outside of they will sometimes place their husbands' family names in front of theirs. For example, former Chief Secretary for Administration of Hong Kong, Mrs. is known as Chan Fang On-sang where Fang is her maiden name. It is thus, technically possible for a married woman to have a six-character full name if both she and her husband have compounded surnames such as in this hypothetical example: 歐陽司徒美英 or Mrs. Au-Yeung Szeto Mei-ying. Most Hong Kong women retain their own surnames after marriage or choose to be known as Mrs. (husband's surname).

The sociological use of surnames
Throughout most of Chinese history, surnames have served sociological functions. Because of their association with the aristocratic elite in their early developments, surnames were often used as symbols of nobility. Thus nobles would use their surnames to be able to trace their ancestry and compete for seniority in terms of hereditary rank. Examples of early among the royalty can be found in 's , which contain tables recording the descent lines of noble houses called shibiao.

Later, during the Han Dynasty, these tables were used by prominent families to glorify themselves and sometimes even to legitimise their political power. For example,, who forced the abdication of the last Han emperor in his favour, claimed descent from the. Chinese emperors sometimes passed their own surnames to subjects as honours. Unlike European practice in which some surnames are obviously noble, Chinese emperors and members of the royal family had regular surnames except in cases where they came from non-Han ethnic groups. This was a result of Chinese imperial theory in which a commoner could receive the and become emperor. Upon becoming emperor, the emperor would retain his original surname. Also as a consequence, many people also had the same surname as the emperor, but had no direct relation to the royal family.

The Tang Dynasty was the last period when the great aristocratic families, mostly descended from the nobility of pre-Qin states, held significant centralised and regional power. The surname was used as a source of prestige and common allegiance. During the period a large number of genealogical records called pudie were compiled to trace the complex descent lines of clans and their marriage ties to other clans. A large number of these were collected by in his New History of Tang.

During the Song Dynasty, ordinary clans began to organise themselves into corporate units and produce genealogies. This trend was led by the poet and his father. As competition for resources and positions in the bureaucracy intensified, individuals used their common ancestry and surname to promote solidarity. They established schools to educate their sons and held common lands to aid disadvantaged families. Ancestral temples were also erected to promote surname identity. Clan cohesion was usually encouraged by successive imperial governments since it aided in social stability. During the Qing Dynasty surname associations often undertook extra-judicial roles, providing primitive legal and social security functions. They played important roles in the Chinese diaspora to and elsewhere, providing the infrastructure for the establishment of trading networks. In southern China, however, clans sometimes engaged in armed conflict in competition for land. Of course, clans continued the tradition of tracing their ancestry to the distant past as a matter of prestige. Most of these origin myths, though well established, are spurious.

As a result of the importance of surnames, rules and traditions regarding family and marriage grew increasingly complex. For example, in Taiwan, there is a clan with the so-called "double Liao" surname. The story is that the founder of the clan was adopted and so took the surname Liao, but in honor of his ancestors, he demanded that he be buried with the surname Chen. As a result, his descendants use the surname Liao while alive and the surname Chen after death. In some places, there are additional taboos against marriage between people of the same surname, considered to be closely related. Conversely, in some areas, there are different clans with the same surname which are not considered to be related, but even in these cases surname is generally practiced.

Surname identity and solidarity has declined markedly since the 1930s with the decline of and later, the rise of  in Mainland China. During the, surname culture was actively persecuted by the government with the destruction of ancestral temples and genealogies. Moreover, the influx of Western culture and forces of have also contributed to erode the previous sociological uses of the Chinese surname.