Chinese surnames

[CHUNG Yoon-Ngan <chungyn@mozart.joinet.net.au>]

Chinese surnames

Long ago, before Huang Di (黃帝) or the Yellow Emperor, people living in
the land of what we now called 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 Nu (女
female)  and Sheng (生 produce). Children followed their mothers' surnames
because they did not know their fathers. Only after Fu Xi Shi (伏羲氏) had
established rules of marriages that children knew their fathers and they
began to follow their surnames.

During the Dynasties of Xia (夏朝), Shang (商朝) and Zhou (周朝) 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. 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, if they shared the same
surname they were not allowed to get marry because, since Fu Xi Shi's time
until nowadays, Chinese customary rules forbid the reunion of a same
surname couple.  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 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) 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. I have written the histories of the
most 550 common Chinese surnames. My book "The Origin of Chinese Surnames
華人姓的來源" will be published soon.

Many countries have the most three common surnames. In Britain the three
most common surnames aer: 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 million Chinese with the surname Zhang
alone. Surname Zhang could be the most common surname in the whole world.

According to the historian Li Dong Ming (李棟明), in his article about
Chinese surnames published in the magazine called Dong Fang Za Zhi
(東方雜志): 

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 5,000 surnames like:
Miao (苗), Mao (毛), Jiang (江), Bai (白), Gu (古), Liao (廖) etc etc.

CHUNG Yoon-Ngan (鄭永元).
chungyn@mozart.joinet.net.au
Copyright 1999. All rights reserved.