Author: Yoon-Ngan CHUNG
Date: 03-05-04 04:41
Dear Andries,
This is only a part of the origin of my article which is about 20 pages long
About Chinese surnames
關 於 華 人 的 姓 氏
Long ago, before Huang Di (黃帝) or the Yellow Emperor, people living in
the land of what we now call China already had surnames to identify
themselves. At that time it was a maternal society (母系公社). People knew
only their mothers and they did not whom their fathers were.
Surname is called Xing (姓) in Chinese. Xing is a combination of two radicles:
Nu (女 female) and Sheng (生 produce), that is females produce children.
Children followed their mothers' surnames because they did not know their fathers. Legend has it that, only after Fu Xi Shi (伏羲氏), whose surname name was Feng
(風 or wind), had established rules of marriages that children knew their fathers and they began to follow their surnames.
During the Dynasties of Xia (夏朝 2205BC to 1766BC), Shang (商朝 1783BC to 1122BC) and Zhou (周朝 1134BC to 256BC) people already had Xing
(姓 surnames) and Shi (氏 family name). Xing derived from the village where a person lived or his particular tribe. Shi could be a title bestowed upon a person
by the ruler, the official position a person was holding or a posthumous title given
by a ruler.
For a commoner he had Xing and Ming (名 name) but he had no Shi (氏). For
an aristocrat he had a surname, Shi and a name. A female and a male having
the same Shi were allowed to get marry. However, traditionally, if they
shared the same surname they were forbidden to intermarry because they
were supposedly shared the same ancestor. It was, and even nowadays,
considered mildly incestuous for a couple sharing the same surname to
marry. Evidences had showed that a same surname couple could produce
inferior offspring.
During the reign of Li Shi Min (李世民 627AD to 649AD) of Tang Dynasty
(618AD to 907AD) an official by the name of Gao Shi Lian (高士廉) compiled
all the surnames he could find at that time into a book entiled "Shi Zu Zhi
氏族志 or The Annal of the Clans". The administration of Li Shi Min used this
book as a guide for marriages and for admittance to government offices.
Bai Jia Xing (百家姓) or common people's surnames (or many people like to
call it 'hundred family surnames') written by an anonym during the Song Dynasty (960AD to 1279AD) was the most common book on surnames ever written. It has 408 single chracter surnames and 30 double character surnames. Nowadays
there are more than 5,000 Chinese surnames. My book "The Origin of Chinese Surnames 華人姓的來源" contains the most common 550 of them.
Many countries have the most three common surnames. In Britain the three
most common surnames are: Smith, Jones and Williams. The three most common
surnmames in U.S.A are: Smith, Johnson and Carson; in France: the Martin,
Bernard and Dupont; in Germany: Schultz, Mueller, and Shmidt and in
Russia: the Ivanov, Vasiliev, Deternov. What about China? Well, there are
four most common surnames in China: the Zhang (張), Wang (王), Li (李) and
Zhao (趙). There are more than 100 millions Chinese with the surname Zhang
and another 100 millions with surname Wang. Surnames Zhang and Wang
could be the most common surnames in the whole world.
It was estimasted that;
forty percent of the Chinese or 400 million are with these ten surnames:
Zhang (張), Wang (王), Li (李), Zhao (趙), Chen (陳), Yang (楊),
Wu (吳), Liu (劉), Huang (黃), and Zhou (周).
More than ten percent or 100 million Chinese are with these surnames:
Xu (徐), Zhu (朱), Lin (林), Sun (孫), Ma (馬), Gao (高), Hu (胡), Zheng
(鄭), Guo (郭) and Xiao (蕭).
About ten percent of the Chinese share these ten surnames: Xie (謝), He
(何), Xu (許), Song (宋), Shen (沈), Luo (羅), Han (韓), Deng (鄧), Liang
(梁) and Ye (葉).
The following fifteen surnames are also being shared by about ten percent
Chinese: Fang (方), Cui (崔), Cheng (程), Pan (潘), Cao (曹), Feng (馮),
Wang (汪), Cai (蔡), Yuan (袁), Lu (盧), Tang (唐), Qian (錢), Du (杜),
Peng (彭) and Lu (陸).
In other words, more than seventy percent or 700 million of the Chinese in
the world are sharing the above forty five surnames. On the contrary, only
about thirty percent of the Chinese sharing the rare 4,900 surnames like:
Miao (苗), Mai (麥), Yue (岳), Si-Ma (司-馬), Ou-Yang (歐-陽), Mao (毛)
etc etc.
.
CHUNG Yoon-Ngan (鄭永元)
All rights reserved 2002
Yoon-Ngan CHUNG
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