He is a leading researcher[1] on Chinese surnames in mainland China, and has been working on statistical studies of surname distribution in the People's Republic of China over the past two decades.
Yuan Yida was born in 1947 in Shanghai, tracing his ancestry to Fenghua, Zhejiang.
In mainland China he has published more than 30 articles and two monographs.
He has remarked that fortune-telling based on surnames exists in China, labeling it "nonsense".
He claimed that research on surnames may invoke patriotic feelings in overseas Chinese by drawing them closer to other Chinese with the same surname.