Chinese surname

[3] The remaining eight of the top ten most common Chinese surnames are Zhang, Liu, Chen, Yang, Huang, Zhao, Wu and Zhou.

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.

For example, the ancestors of the Shang had Zi (子) as xing, but the descendants were subdivided into numerous shi including Yin (殷), Song (宋), Kong (空), Tong (同) and others.

They generally contain a "female" (Chinese: 女; pinyin: nǚ) radical, for example Ji (姬), Jiang (姜), Yao (姚) and Yíng (嬴).

[1] Scholars such as Edwin G. Pulleyblank, however, are unconvinced by the matriarchy theory of Chinese surnames due to a lack of independent evidence.

As fiefdoms were divided and subdivided among descendants, so additional sub-surnames known as shi were created to distinguish between noble lineages according to seniority, though in theory they shared the same ancestor.

[12] After the states of China were unified by Qin Shi Huang in 221 BC, surnames gradually spread to the lower classes.

Around the major crossing points of the Yangzi River, the most common surname is Lĭ (李), taking up 7.7%, followed by Wáng (王), Zhāng (张/張), Chan/Chén (陈/陳) and Liú (刘/劉).

[citation needed] Furthermore, a 2012 study found that there was the lowest amount of isonymy in surnames among the population around middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River both on the provincial and county levels.

[24] Additionally, it was found that counties with the highest values of isonymy were distributed in the provinces with high proportions of ethnic minorities.

A study by geneticist Yuan Yida has found that of all the people with a particular surname, there tends to be a population concentration in a certain province,[25] as tabulated to the right.

[citation needed] The Kuàng (邝/鄺) family, for example, migrated from the northern capital and settled in Guangdong after the Song dynasty revolts.

Of the thousands of surnames which have been identified from historical texts prior to the modern era, most have either been lost (see extinction of family names) or simplified.

Historically there are close to 12,000 surnames recorded including those from non-Han Chinese ethnic groups, of which only about 3,100 are in current use,[26] a factor of almost 4:1 (about 75%) reduction.

欧 阳), occasionally romanized as O'Young, suggesting an Irish origin to English-speakers, and Situ (or Sito 司 徒).

[23] Due to the different pronunciations and romanizations, it is sometimes easy to tell whether a Chinese person has origins in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, or Taiwan.

People from Southeast Asia (mainly Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines) and Hong Kong usually base their romanization of surnames and names on the Min, Hakka and Cantonese languages.

The younger generation from Singapore often has their surname in dialect ((Hokkien, Teochew, Hainanese, Cantonese, and Hakka) and given names in English, Mandarin, or both.

The Tang dynasty was the last period when the great aristocratic families, mostly descended from the nobility of pre-Qin states, held significant centralized and regional power.

To differentiate between different surnames, the Tang also choronyms before stating beforehand, for example Lǒngxī Lǐshì 隴西李氏, meaning Li of Longxi.

As competition for resources and positions in the bureaucracy intensified, individuals used their common ancestry and surname to promote solidarity.

During the Qing dynasty surname associations often undertook extrajudicial roles, providing primitive legal and social security functions.

They played important roles in the Chinese diaspora to South-East Asia and elsewhere, providing the infrastructure for the establishment of trading networks.

Moreover, the influx of Western culture and forces of globalization have also contributed to erode the previous sociological uses of the Chinese surnames.

According to a comprehensive survey of residential permits released by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security on 24 April 2007,[34][35] the ten most common surnames in mainland China are Wang (王), Li (李), Zhang (张), Liu (刘), Chen (陈), Yang (杨), Huang (黄), Zhao (赵), Wu (吴), and Zhou (周).

The MPS survey revealed that the top 3 surnames in China have a combined population larger than Indonesia,[39] the world's fourth-most-populous country.

The 2019 report by Chinese Ministry of Public Security gives the surnames Wang and Li as the most common ones, with each shared by over 100 million people in China.

According to a comprehensive survey of residential permits released by the Taiwanese Ministry of the Interior's Department of Population in February 2005,[41] the ten most common surnames in Taiwan are Chen (陳), Lin (林), Huang (黃), Chang or Zhang (張), Lee or Li (李), Wang (王), Wu (吳), Liu (劉), Tsai (蔡), and Yang (楊).

As is typical of China as a whole, these surnames conflate many different lineages and origins, although tradition may bind them to the same ancestral temples and rituals or ban intermarriage.

For example, some Taiwanese converts to Presbyterianism adopted the name Kai (偕, pinyin Xié) in honor of the Canadian missionary George Leslie Mackay (馬偕, Pe̍h-ōe-jī Má-kai).