Talk:Chinese surname/Archive 1

Archive 1

Ethnic Chinese and Han people

The recent change at 14:16, 29 Oct 2004 basically equated Ethnic Chinese and Han people. I bet many minority Chinese would object to that. Kowloonese 22:44, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It all depends on what sense the term "Chinese" is used. Is Chinese someone who was born in China? Are people whose ancestors are from China Chinese? I was under the impression that "Chinese surname" relates to surnames of Han Chinese rather than the surname of all the ethnic groups of the People's Republic of China. That's why variations used by overseas Chinese are also included in the article. Surnames of most minorities (with certain exceptions, Koreans, for example) would have different cultural backgrounds and origins to Han surnames. Do you think a Tibetan or Uighur would characterise himself as ethnically Chinese or his surname as a Chinese surname? I'd think probably not. If you're not happy with the term ethnic Chinese then I would be happy for you to change it to "Han Chinese". --Yuninjie 23:03, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ethnic Chinese sounds like an oxymoron in the same way ethnic American would be. Both Chinese and American are comprised of a collection of ethnic groups. Does ethnic American refer to the native American? the discoverer like Columbus, the Italian? the king who funded the exploration, the Spanish? the first settlers, the English? If you go to Chicago, the ethnic American can mean Irish or Polish. If you go to San Jose, the ethnic American can mean Vietnamese. My point is that oxymoron does not make sense.

Before Yuan dynasty the Mongul were not Chinese. Before Qing dynasty the Manchu wre not Chinese. It is simply polically incorrect to say Chinese means Han these days. Ethnic Han is valid, but there is no such thing as ethnic Chinese. Just my opinion. Kowloonese 20:40, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

For clarity sake, it should be Han Chinese. I cannot even figure out what's the Chinese translation of "ethnic Chinese". The term was probably invented in English in the first place. All of the Chinese terms I can think of off my head makes the distinction between ethnicity (漢,唐) and nationality (中,華).

In the language, the term "ethnic Chinese" sounds very close to Zhonghua minzu, although that means "Chinese nation". Voidvector 22:37, Oct 30, 200

4 (UTC)

If you were right that ethnic Chinese means Zhonghua minzu, then the Manchu surname should be included. In the context of the article, the original writing was correctly saying some surnames were not Han, but then a recent change replaced Han with ethnic Chinese. That is the reason I cried foul because in my opinion, replacing "Han" with "ethnic Chinese" is plainly wrong. These two terms cannot be equivalent. Kowloonese 20:00, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sometimes the terms "Han" and "ethnic Chinese" can be equivalent. For example, Han people living in Southeast Asia are frequently described as being ethnic Chinese rather than ethnic Malays, Thais etc. If there were a Tibetan living in Malaysia, you'd hardly call him or her an ethnic Chinese. --Yuninjie 23:13, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Yuninjie. As far as I can tell, "ethnic Chinese" is how western media used to mean Han (since most westerners have no idea what a Han person would be). For example, theyetc would describe how Tibetans and "ethnic Chinese" (Han-dominated government) are in antagonism, . But I don't read newspaper that much, so, maybe I misunderstood. --Menchi 00:20, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It does not matter how many examples you quote and how many counterexample I quote. The fact that this term is arguable, ambiguous, technically or politically incorrect is enough ground to add a clarification. Changing a clean cut term into an ambiguous term is the trigger for this thread of debate. I am going to add the word Han back to the sentence. Kowloonese 20:31, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

So in that case are we including non-Han surnames in this article as well? Does the term Chinese surname include surnames of all ethnic groups in China? The introduction says that "sinicised ethnic groups" are included. What ethnic groups are sinicised? --Yuninjie 21:30, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I guess you missed my point. I only had problem with one sentence which was originally written for Han, and changed to ethnic Chinese. I reverted it to say Han again. This article is for all Chinese surnames, not just for the Han's names. The change I made was in the sentence which say that a lot of the compound surnames do not belong to ethnic Chinese. I changed it to say that compound surnames are not ethnic Han.

Yes I understand that. My problem is I now don't know the scope of this article. If it's supposed to include surnames of all ethnic groups in China, then it would be more appropriately called "Surnames in China". The article as it now stands is almost entirely focused on Han surnames, which is why referring to "non-Han" surnames is a bit problematic. I feel that the use of the terms "Chinese" and "Han" is very confusing. If "Chinese" is not equal to "Han" in the context of this article, then why isn't there any reference to surnames of non-Han ethnic groups other than the Manchu? I don't think the use of the term Chinese to refer to only Han people is politically incorrect. If anything, it is more correct since it acknowledges other cultural groups in China rather than ballooning them all under Han hegemony. How happy would a Tibetan be to be called "Chinese"?--Yuninjie 08:40, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't see that as a problem. The article already mentioned non-Han surnames such as The Qing royal name, and other compound names like Sima etc. So the article is appropriate for covering all "Chinese" names (note that you and I disagree on what "Chinese" means, by my definition Chinese is more than Han). So according to my definition of Chinese, the article title is good as is. It is true that the article lists many Han names, but it is also a fact that none of those non-Han names would make it to the top 100 list. Nonetheless, they are already mentioned in couple of paragraphs outside of the top 100 table. I think that is good enough. Kowloonese 20:42, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Move "Common Chinese Family names" table

I think we should move the "Common Chinese family names" table to a separate page. It's taking up a lot of room and seems more appropriate as one of those "List of ..." pages rather than as part of this page, which should discuss the origin, history and uses of Chinese surnames. --Yuninjie 09:53, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree with you. Let's wait a few days to see if there is any objection, then we proceed to move. -- Felix Wan 17:34, 2004 Oct 29 (UTC)

I am neutral. Since the table is at the bottom of the page, it does not interrupt the flow of the article that much. On the other hand, moving it to a separate page has no ill effect either. Kowloonese 22:06, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Cantonese Romanization

Penkyamp is definitely different from Yale. The former is far more systematic and suitable for substituting sinograms than the latter. I think there are examples at the Penkyamp article illustrating how this system works.

The second column of Cantonese Romanization is neither Yale nor Penkyamp. It is the most common Romanization used by the Hong Kong Government, an unsystematic method based on Meyer-Wempe. I am changing it. -- Felix Wan 23:44, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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Married woman's surname

Quite funny to know that sometimes placing their husbands' family names in front of theirs, never known that before!! Not common in mainland, China. :D :O --ILovEJPPitoC 13:13, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I guess the role of women in mainland China started to diverge from Chinese tradition when husbands called their wives "comrade". Such practice may no longer in use now, but it might have permanently changed the women's perception of their own identity for the last few decades. Do today's women in mainland China use their husband family name at all? 67.117.82.5 01:18, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)

So far as I know, women in mainland China don't use their husbands' family names at all, like my mother, retain all her full name. And I seldom hear of 'comrade' used between my father and mother. --FallingInLoveWithPitoc 01:25, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)

How about addressing a married woman "Mrs. Huang" (黃太太), when the woman's surname is Liu, but her husband's is Huang. Does that still happen? It occurs in Taiwan and overseas. --Menchi 01:34, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Oh, yeah, that's still in use. Maybe in some formal occasion, or the person knows only the man's name, or the person who's the man's friend or co-worker may use that, not sure... I don't usually hear my mom called "Mrs...", not among her friends... but that's another story, right? i think that's different from changing her surname. when filling the table or other situation, she just uses her full name without my pa's surname... not sure about that.--FallingInLoveWithPitoc 02:11, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Just an additional note to this long-expired conversation: Current practice in the mainland is to call the woman "Ms. Liu" (刘女士). "Mrs" (太太) sounds a little stiff and antiquated. -- ran 03:04, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)

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I was not aware that Gioro meant anything in Manchu; at least that's what my instructor told me last year. Could the author provide a source? Mgmei 18:23, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

According to Aisin Gioro, Aisin means gold and the meaning of Gioro is unknown.--Jiang 19:02, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I wrote that part ;) -- I figure that my professor is one of the world experts in Manchu so I didn't do any more research into confirming what he said in class. Mgmei 20:21, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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Matrilineal surname

I've taken out the following until I've seen some evidence of China's purported "matriarchal" past.

Interestingly, the character 姓 is disseminated as "born of woman", a reference to the matriarchal societies of ancient Chinese civilization.

I'm also finding the "born of woman" thing very questionable since I suspect that "sheng/born" is actually a pronunciation cue for the archaic pronunciation of "xing", not a meaning radical paired with "nü/woman". --MTR (严加华) 12:29, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

That some of China's most ancient (prehistorical) socities, like Banshan Culture (半山) near Xi'an was matriarchal is quite a widespread view in the academic circles, AFAIK. --Menchi 19:50, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

My innate suspicion of "academic circles" aside ;-), if it is, in fact, a widespread view, perhaps, then, it will be easy to provide the requested evidence. The way it is worded above, it is spoken of as if it were an obvious, well-known fact. If it belongs in the article on 姓 at all (which I question), it needs to be more properly documented than it is. --MTR (严加华) 13:31, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

I've always heard of it as an "obvious, well-known fact" after I heard it again and again..... And no, I wasn't the person who write or ever modified the above statement you removed, so there. I never studied the details, and I tried to google and couldn't come up with the specifics. Maybe I just suck at googling, or maybe I'm just wrong all these years since a boy. Either way, good evidence would be nice. An article on that would be nice. I'll ask some Chinese Wikipedians to see what they know. --Menchi 21:40, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

I am afraid that it is called Banpo(半坡), isnt it? You should also notice it is a site of Yangshao culture(仰韶文化) ---Koyn 17:25, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Your fear is right! LOL! No wonder why I couldn't find anything. Yeah, if you google Banpo AND matriarchal, you get tones of stuff. --Menchi 23:33, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, yes, you do get tonnes of stuff. A brief survey of it shows nothing constituting actual evidence, though. One site actually does say how the determination that it was "matriarchal" was made -- and if that is the foundation upon which this "fact" is based, then it is very shaky, to put it mildly. Is there something scholarly that supports the contention that this culture was actually matriarchal?

I think the people who lived there could hardly have names (can be written) even if Banpo did have a matriarchal period. ---yACHT nAVEL 14:19, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

I think the 生 is there to provide both pronunciation (xìng is pronounced like shēng) and meaning (You receive a 姓 when you 生), although the character may or may not have been a reference to matriarchy. The etymologies of a lot of Chinese characters are based on speculation and not really provable, anyway. ☞spencer195 20:01, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

In this case the speculation is... weak. 性 means "nature/quality". 姓 means "family name". 星 means "star". 腥 means "foul smell". 　醒 means "regain consciousness". There's not a lot of commonality among these by meaning, but there is by pronunciation: they all contain the 生 radical and they're all pronounced "xing" (in various tones). I don't think that's a coincidence. --MTR (严加华) 13:31, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

IMHO, it's more of a coincidence or speculation than of reality. 姓 can surely be interpreted as "born of woman". However many references can explain the makeup of the character: we should all agree that a human was born by a female. How can the composition of the character necessarily stem from the existence of matriarchal communities but not from the human birth by a female? Furthermore the logic is only unilateral and the composition of the character should not be stretched to use as a reference or even a proof of matriarchal community, much like your biological father is a man but not any man is your father. Matriarchal community did exist in ancient and prehistoric China, which the creation and evolution of the Chinese character may be accounted for. However the use and makeup of the Chinese character cannot prove the existence of matriarchal community. 氏族 existed way before proper Chinese family names came into use: the Yellow Emperor and hir mythological successors adopted various 氏's but not family names.

And Re: MTR, Chinese characters have been evolving and changing meanings all the time so we can't just borrow the present meaning to prove something in the past: take a look at the Chinese character 乖。A kid is 乖 if one behaves; however the past meaning was treacherously clever.

A new article about Cangjie may shade light on this too. Ktsquare (talk) 04:01, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

Reread above, Ktsquare. I'm the one who removed the sentence because I found its conclusion that it was the result of "born of woman" and "matriarchal societies" highly dubious. --MTR

I know but I actually referred to your comments, "I don't think that's a coincidence." and "In this case the speculation is... weak.". And I indeed meant, "it's more of a coincidence or speculation than of reality." Ktsquare (talk) 19:06, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

Recently there was a long discussion on the ancient customs about Chinese family names and clan names that modern Chinese were not aware of. The topic is not mere speculation. It is backed by many respectable papers published by scholars and historians. See the discussion on Talk:Confucius#Family_name, it has some external links to the topics. I thought more details on the topic would be added in the article. I guess it has not happened yet. Kowloonese 22:15, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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From what I've read, there is evidence that ancient Chinese society (pre-Shang Dynasty) was matrilineal, but not necessarily matriarchical. See also "Imagining Matriarchy: 'Kingdoms of Women' in Tang China" by Jennifer W. Jay; The Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 116, 1996, who writes: "Naive travelers, amateur ethnologists, and social evolutionaries, who came from patriarchal societies, mistakenly interpreted matrilineal and matrilocal societies as matriarchies, not recognizing that despite descent and residence through the women, men still monopolized rights and power." Bao Pu (talk) 17:17, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Most common surname?

Someone mentioned the most common surname in Singapore is "Xu", but my secret sources say it's "Chen", as in Taiwan. (Anglicised as "Tan")[1] How was the "Xu" factor derived, may I ask? Mandel 11:18, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

Is this phenomonen similar to split vote in an election? The Chinese name Chen, can be written as Chen, Chan, Tan, Ding etc. depending on the Chinese dialect of the owner, or of the government official who wrote the name down in English transliteration on paper. The count of all the "Chen"s may be spreaded over several spelling. The name Xu may be more consistently spelled hence boosted up the statistics. Xu can be spelled as Hsu, Tsu, Hui etc. depending on dialect too. Kowloonese 20:53, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What about a quote from the Guinness Book of Records which have been listing the surname "Chan/Chen etc" as the most common last name in the world? --Kvasir 08:01, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Why common name?

The reason for this is statistical—it is more likely that the father of a child will have a common family name than an uncommon name, so small differences are magnified over time.

I don't understand this statement in the article. If everyone has the same number of offsprings, the percentage distribution of each name will not change over time. This statement is true only if people with uncommon surname is less likely to get married and have children. Can someone explain me the logic? -- Kowloonese 01:44, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Kowloonese, I agree with you that it doesn't make sense. It seems very unlikely that men with uncommon surnames are at some kind of disadvantage in having children. If there is any such phenomenon, it is not explained clearly by this sentence.

I very vaguely remember reading an article about this question around fifteen years ago (in the context of Western surnames). It might have been something about the distribution of surnames being modeled statistically by a Markov chain. However, I think the result (in the paper I read) they got was more like that assuming a finite, unchanging population size, and an infinite number of generations, eventually everyone will have the same surname. This is really quite different, but I'm guessing that the sentence in the article may have been a misunderstanding of this result.

I'm going to take it out until someone can come up with a clearer, more specific statement with references.

Regards, Pekinensis 01:11, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

What is the most common surname?

Even within the same article, there is conflict as to which is the most common surname. A quick internet search found two more views, one of which was provided by a Yahoo! answer!

My understanding, based on and only on Wikipedia's information, is that as of 1990 Wang is the most common, and as of 2002 Li is. But various pages throughout Wikipedia still disagree with each other.

Shouldn't one or the other be decided on? That one must have a direct source that can be linked to from here. If we can't do that, then we can't provide a most common surname - only a few most common ones. Neonumbers 02:28, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Chinese surnames on Wikipedia

It has become necessary to find out how Chinese surnames should be dealt with on Wikipedia since category:Hong Kong surnames is nominated onto Wikipedia:Categories for deletion. The poll there seems quite unanimous, but IMHO, it does not address how Chinese surnames should be presented, given different spoken variants and romanisation methods exist, although the surnames are the characters (despite traditional/simplified).

The current naming conventions on Chinese-related topics and manuel of style for Chinese-related topics only governs mainland China- and Han-related pages to use Pinyin. Surnames would be out of their coverage.

Although it would be quite natural to have the articles reside at the locations based on Pinyin, given the size and population of mainland China, it has already gone beyond what is guided by the naming conventions and manual of style. By doing so we will also be denying people with surnames not based on Pinyin from having articles of their surnames on Wikipedia in their non-Pinyin forms.

I do agree we will have to sort and present Chinese surnames by Chinese character, and reside at one single location for each surname (accroding to character), with other variations being redirect (and disambiguation in case they do not correspond in a one-to-one manner).

Any constructive opinion and suggestion is welcome. Thank you. — Instantnood 13:48, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

It's Huaiwei again.... Shinjiman 13:55, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Me again? I dont exactly find you familiar thou. ;) Well, I have made some changes to the first few surnames in List of common Chinese surnames as a "demonstration" or sorts. Do check it out. Basically, surname pages without the {surname} qualifyer will be made disambig pages, while tentatively, main content for surnames are on the page with the Pinyin prununciation. I am open as to which surname page should take precedence...either all on pinyin pages, or elaborated on each page.--Huaiwei 14:13, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Multi-region surnames

I have now discovered that the Wang (surname) and Zhang (surname) articles do not deal with only the surnames as Chinese surnames, but Korean and Japanese counterparts as well. The problem is more complicated than what I thought. :-D — Instantnood 14:31, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

Well....see how many Kims and Lee/Lis there are across East Asia too...which is why I changed one page which had the qualifier (Chinese family name) to (surname) instead.--Huaiwei 14:47, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Right. And it would be problematic for the article on Kim/Jin/Kam/Chin if the decision is Pinyin. There are probably more Kims than Jins. — Instantnood 14:53, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

Hm...so should we have:

1. Wang (surname), or
2. Wang (Korean surname), Wang (Chinese surname)?

Note that this will dictate if we are going to have Lee (Surname) or Lee (Korean name) and Lee (Chinese surname)--Huaiwei 15:19, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Difficult question. 왕 is actually written as 王 in Hanja, and its origin is said to be from Shandong. 이 or 리 is also 李 in Hanja. — Instantnood 15:25, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

I realise there was actually two possible approaches to this problem too.

1. . We concentrate on the anclicised term to dictate where to place contents. So for eg, Lee will be for all surnames which happen to be spelt Lee in anglicised form, but may actually refer to different words either within the same language, or across different languages.
2. . We place contents which refer to the same root word, even if they are pronounced and anglicised differently in different parts of the world, in the same page. So, Li and Lee are in the same page. Kim and Jing are the same too.

Get me so far? :D Both has its own pros and cons, and I actually notice both have already been applied at some point or other. It does make things rather messy thou.--Huaiwei 16:07, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Exactly. It's very complicated and messy, and is something can't be dealt with at WP:CFD simply by polling. Frankly there're two things coming up in my mind, i) to put up a similar notice at a Korean notice board, and ii) to propose a WikiProject on surnames. :-D — Instantnood 16:39, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

Well, dont take a swipe over the CFD thing, because that category in question is quite obviously not going to make this discussion any better or worse, and it is pretty clear no one agrees that you can classify surnames by geography. The two issues are quite seperate and distinct, and that is quite clear to all...except you?--Huaiwei 18:07, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

To repeat myself, I was not classifying surnames by geography, but by a language plus a romanisation convention. And it was the CFD that leads to the problem here. — Instantnood 19:25, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

Then let me repeat. Cantonese is not a language confined to Hong Kong, and neither are all people with Cantonese-spelt names automatically related to Hong Kong in some way. Secondly, Hong Kong did not unilaterally come up with a romanisation convention for surnames in Cantonese, proven by the fact that there are countless people outside Hong Kong who also spell their surnames the same way, but have nothing to do with Hong Kong. There are plenty of Wongs in Singapore, but are they all from Hong Kong, or did they follow a "Hong Kong romanisation convention"? That you need a CFD to realise this issue probably suggests someone who has provincial thinking. If I had not done it, will you fail to see this problem, or will you intentionally ignore it? Whatever the case, I am not going to discuss this further on this page, and you will do good not constantly bringing it up unless you are looking for another dressing down session. If you like, go ahead and further discuss it in the CFD, and not mess up the discussion here.--Huaiwei 19:56, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've said many times you can add categories to the articles if it's appropriate. I've also said I can accept renaming if there's any good ones. Please don't deny the fact that transcription based on the same language but different method can still end up with the same outcome. But fine... I don't think I can discuss anything with you. You're simply keeping on labeling people whom you're unconfortable with. — Instantnood 20:10, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

• You seem to be asking for this discussion to denegenerate into a personal tit-for-tat. What do you mean by "people I am uncomfortable with"? Labelling? Well if there is anyone who seems to think only Hong Kong dictates the way Cantonese surnames are romanised as thou these are not shared by non-Hong Kongers, I do not have a problem with that if its out of ignorance and good intent. But if we have everyone telling this person time and again that his simplistic assumptions cannot hold, and he persist in insisting they are, then whether that is provincial thinking or not, I leave it up to you to imagine. Afterall, I dont recall directly labelling anyone as such.
• Secondly, you seem to assume that when I disagree with one categorisation with Hong Kong in its name, it has to mean I am unhappy that a similar category under Singapore did not exist. That is simply immature. This is evidenced when you keep asking me to "add categories to the articles if it's appropriate", and even added Category:Singapore surnames to Ng after I demanded to know why is it classified as a Hong Kong surname. If you think you can pacify me by doing so, you got to be greatly mistaken, because I am hardly interested in stooping to the level of trying to play "provincial games" with you in seeing who can create more pages and categories related to their home country/city/territory. I target categories which are either not tenable, or simple does not make logical sence. The above is one example. Need I say more?
• I do not even know what you are talking about in "Please don't deny the fact that transcription based on the same language but different method can still end up with the same outcome." How is this relevant to the Hong Kong surnames category? If you think you have a logical and convincing set of arguments to make, why are they not coming forth in the CFD, only for you to make plenty of noise over here in what I actually tot was going to be a more factual and level-headed discussion devoid of ego-centered ramblings like the above? I must say I am utterly dissapointed as well.--Huaiwei 20:39, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

May I ask that you two please cease your bickering or at least move it to your respective User Talk pages? This is not helping to move the conversation forward. In any case, I think MarkSweep makes some very good points below and we need to consider them. I'll comment on them when I get some time to think about it more fully. --Umofomia 20:52, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It always happens whenever she/he and I are in the same discussion. :-D Let her/him say it (if she/he really needs to). — Instantnood 21:16, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

You innate immmturity is well encapsulated in the above sentence, as well as in your recent adventures in the WP:CFD. Your behavior simply enforces and justifies my comments about you.--Huaiwei 22:53, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Multi-region/-language surnames are quite tricky. I don't know what would be a good solution, just pointing out that the issue is more complex than it might seem. It may be a lucky accident that "Wang" is romanized consistently the same in the example above. But what about a Cantonese surname like "Wong"? We can't simply have it redirect to whichever article about "Wang" is most appropriate, since "Wong" can correspond to either (Mandarin pinyin, SCIM not working for some reason) "Wang2", "Huang2", or "Wang1". So we would need an article Wong (Cantonese surname) that gives hanzi and cross-references the corresponding Mandarin, Korean, etc. surname articles. --MarkSweep 17:31, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This is actually suggested at WP:CFD, to deal with the surnames by redirects and disambiguations, and that I have repeated when I start this section. It could be practical, if we're agreed with a standard way, say, according to Pinyin (e.g. Zhang over Jang/Cheung/Chang) or popularity (e.g. Kim over Jin/Kam/Kum/Chin), to reside an article. — Instantnood 21:14, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

I was the one who first made the suggestion, and upon deeper reflection, I felt this, especially redirects, may no longer be feasible. This is simply because by doing so, we will not have that surname appearing in categories, and someone who happens to be browsing via categories may not know what is the most common reference to that surname.--Huaiwei 22:53, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree that redirects probably won't do the job well. But why not simply use standard links (i.e., cross-referencing) between articles and use redirects only for spelling variants? For example, there could be an article Wang (Chinese surname) (or Wang (Mandarin surname)??) that explains the different hanzi and pronunciations for all versions of "Wang". The article Wong (Cantonese surname) would then explain the same situation for Cantonese and also link to Wang (Chinese surname) and Huang (Chinese surname). The only issue is that we would essentially end up with separate articles for each (major) Chinese language/dialect, because of different ambiguities created by each language and/or Romanization system. --MarkSweep 01:01, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't think the issue of having too many separate language/dialect articles will be too big of a problem. Remember that not all surnames will be deemed encyclopedic enough to be added to Wikipedia, and creating too many of these will most likely result in RfDs. I think one article, Wong (surname), is adequate. There's no need to use Wong (Cantonese surname) unless there is an overwhelming difference with another language that happens to use Wong for a surname. The Cantonese Wong is popular enough to add to Wikipedia. In another instance, even though 黃 is Ng in Hokkien, I'm uncertain this usage is popular enough to merit its own article. Instead, a brief mention on the main Ng article should be sufficient, and have it link to Huang (surname). I do suggest that we use the Pinyin spellings as the main articles, and have most of the other articles ultimately link to them. --Umofomia 05:26, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

An alternative is to have the brief descriptions on the article for each surname in English. Roots of the surnames (in Chinese character), notable people of the surnames, etc., would be placed at a standardised location. I don't know if Pinyin will be the right place, as for some surnames, say, Kim, are much more popular than their counterparts in Pinyin (Jin for Kim). — Instantnood 10:30, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

As I said before, the surname needs to first be encyclopedic enough to deserve an entry. Jin is not nearly popular enough to deserve its own page, whereas Kim is. --Umofomia 13:32, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I generally agree with Umofomia's view about not having too many splintered articles, but I am open as to which spelling should become the primary page. Our friends in Taiwan may not exactly appreciate this. For examples like Ng, I would turn it into a disemg page, with a link to Ng (surname). Within this new page, it will lead to two links, one to [[Wu (surname}]], and the other to Huang (surname) as he suggested above. But as to whether we should shift the main commentary for each in their respective pinyin pages, I await more opinions on this one.--Huaiwei 16:48, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

(to Umofomia's comment at 13:32, Apr 6) Although I agree surnames that are popular deserve entries, it's unfair to say a surname does not deserve it because its rare. Entries are about the roots, perhaps the etymology, as well as notable people. For instance, 왕 was once very popular, and was the name of the royal family. As far as I recall there was a legislative yuan member of the ROC with the name 金. — Instantnood 17:09, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

Keep in mind that Wikipedia is not a genealogy database but an encyclopedia. If you think you can make the Jin article encyclopedic enough, then by all means go ahead and create it, but you may end up getting RfDs like this one: Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Melheim. Some of the comments posted on that RfD may pertain to this topic. --Umofomia 17:29, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yeap. There are thousands of Chinese surnames alone, and that is when counting the Chinese characters. Add in the differences in romanisation, and we multiple that number further. I do not think it is feasible or logical to make an attempt to trace them just to be "fair".--Huaiwei 17:36, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

(response to Umofomia's comment at 17:29, Apr 6) Unlike western surnames, most Han surnames, even the non-popular ones, are still much more popular than western ones. And by the way given the precedance of Zhang and Wang, if the decision is to talk about Han and Korean surnames in the same articles, we'll have to make a choice between Kim and Jin. — Instantnood 20:01, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

---

Would Hanzi/Hanja be allowed to be titles? If yes the whole matter can be solved by turning all romanised form into redirects or disambiguations (except between the choice of Traditional Chinese characters/Hanjas and Simplified Chiense characters). — Instantnood 07:32, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

---

User:Jiang has started a WikiProject for Chinese surnames. — Instantnood 13:24, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Xiao (肖), simplified and traditional form

Quote Some common Northern names are rare in the South. For example, the 55th most popular family name Xiao (肖) is almost unheard of in Hong Kong, as this "new" surname was "created" from oversimplifying the traditional surname "蕭" during the Cultural Revolution.

I think this is wrong, 肖 and 蕭 are both Xiao and is the same name. 肖 is just the simplified form and 蕭 the traditional form. LDHan 10:52, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the sentence. LDHan 16:40, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Incorrect, the simplified form of 蕭 is 萧. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 23:20, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

萧 is the first-round simplified character of 蕭, which was meant to be replaced by 肖 in the notorious second-round. While the second-round was long abolished, the usage of 肖 replacing 蕭 still remains. In recent years however, the usage of 萧 is on an increase. -- G.S.K.Lee 16:43, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for making it clearer, I suppose the sentence needs to be rewritten to reflect the info regarding Xiao in Second-round_simplified_Chinese_character. LDHan 17:44, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Are 肖 and 萧 regarded as two different surnames? Or are they the same name but have different written forms? LDHan 07:17, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Most common surname in Anhui Province

The Chart in the article says it is Wang (汪), however the more common form of Wang is 王. Could someone please look into this? Footballrocks41237 20:59, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Common surname by province table

Quote A study by geneticist Yuan Yida has found that certain names appear most commonly in each province of China, as seen at right (table)
Further about the comment about Wang (汪), it seems like it's saying that Liang is the most common name in Guangxi, Zheng in Fujian etc which obviously is not correct. So is it saying that eg Anhui has the largest percentage of all the people with the surname Wang (汪) and so on? LDHan 15:29, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I've changed it to A study by geneticist Yuan Yida has found that of all the people with a particular surname its highest number can be found in a certain province, as seen at right. It does not show the most common surnames in any one province. LDHan 13:57, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Chinese surname categories up for deletion

A new editor has just added a number of categories for Chinese surnames, which I believe to be very useful, particularly in grouping individuals who share a common surname but use different romanizations. As is usually the case at the Categories for Deletion area, the people who frequent that place generally try to delete every new category, regardless of whether they understand its use. In this case, they seem not to understand the utility of being able to have a category for everyone with the name "Liu," for example. Please voice your opinion here. Badagnani 03:55, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

ok? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.82.133.103 (talk) 12:25, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Surname, family name, given name

I decided to tweak the intro a bit - remember that "surname" redirects to "Family name" on EN. Is there an authoritative source that specifically defines "surname" as different from "Family name" and "clan name" in the context of the Chinese? Since "clan names" are not technically used today, we should refer to modern Chinese names as "family names," no? WhisperToMe (talk) 22:18, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmong surnames?

I remember there being an article on Hmong surnames that included the Chinese character as well. Is there any way we can include the Hmong equivalent in the main table? User:Mingjai (talk) 25 February 2008 —Preceding comment was added at 19:58, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Chinese Miao people adopted Han style name. For an example Song ZuyingKJ (talk) 18:22, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

xing only for men in ancient times?

This statement in the introduction seems to contradict the article in zh wikipedia. Miuki (talk) 01:37, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Xing and Shi sentences are confusing

The following two sentences are very confusing and I have commented them out:

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.

Here is a proposed revision.

Chinese women typically retain their birth surname after marriage. Historically, men had a xìng and a shì, while unmarried women had only a shì. Upon marriage, the woman would add her husband's xìng to her name.

Wakablogger2 (talk) 21:30, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Hu

The origin of surname Hu has nothing to do with Huren. see 胡姓 and 胡姓.--刻意(Kèyì) 01:59, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

surnames from mothers (or wifes)?

Pursuant to Naming laws in the People's Republic of China, surnames can also be chosen from mothers in the PRC, while this article says only from fathers. Please anyone knowledgable settles this contradiction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meerwind7 (talk • contribs) 16:25, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Woman's surname after marriage

I was wondering if it is traditional for woman to retain their birth name upon marriage in Chinese culture? I understand that practices are different now; there was a shift towards women changing to their husband's surname upon marriage at some point but there women are retaining their surname from birth.

Is this something that should be mentioned here or is it already mentioned elsewhere on wikipedia? 209.53.181.140 (talk) 20:03, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

WP:ENGVAR

Per this edit, the usage of this page is American English and should be kept consistent by future editors. Cheers! — LlywelynII 06:31, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Notable articles

• zh:Category:漢字姓氏 = 570 names
• Category:Chinese-language_surnames = 196 names

User:Zanhe, I was looking in the Baijiaxing at 陳李張黃何 which User:Mythsearcher mentioned as already all kinda hard to understand with just the English-description, with the exception of 黃. Of these:

Chen (surname) is naturally covering Chen (陳), no ambiguity issues.

Li (surname) the current mess. FWIW Li (李)... in my pocket Baijiaxing gives "plum" as 1st meaning, I don't see any problem with this as extra disambiguator, is there?

Zhang (surname) is currently covering Zhang (張), and Zhang (章) and incorrectly wikidata mislinking to the latter.

He (surname) is currently covering He (何) and zh:河姓‎, zh:和姓, zh:贺姓 and correctly wikidata linking

Xu (surname) zh:徐姓 zh:许姓

In ictu oculi (talk) 07:41, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Yeah it's a mess that requires a lot of work to clean up. I've been gathering sources and will try to deal with the issues when I have more free time after summer. As for disambiguating with character meaning, I really don't think it's a good idea. It doesn't work for probably 90% of the cases, and opens a new can of worms like Ji (surname meaning "concubine"). Even Huang (黃) above, although it means yellow now, the name actually comes from the Huang (state) and has nothing to do with the colour. None of the reliable sources provided by User:Obiwankenobi on WP:AT uses this method to deal with the ambiguity. -Zanhe (talk) 19:00, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

The Yellow Emperor and the origin of Chinese surnames

http://books.google.com/books?id=Va0pTViARqkC&pg=PA110#v=onepage&q&f=false

03:37, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Needs reorganizing

At the moment, the different sections don't appear to be well-organized with some repetition on various section. For example the sections on "Distribution of surnames", "Common Chinese surnames" covers basically the same topic (both on the commonest name in various regions) and should be rewritten or perhaps merged as sub-sections of a larger topic. The section "Surnames at present" also covers some of the same ground (commonest surnames), and since the other two sections are also basically about surname at present the titling of different sections is just a bit odd. That section also dealt with historical reason for disappearance on names which is a separate topic from surnames at present. I'm not sure how to organize it but someone should give it a go. Hzh (talk) 18:33, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

In front

Shouldn't it be noted that Chinese surnames are written before a person's given name to avoid confusion? Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 11:14, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

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Grouping Chinese from Singapore and Malaysia as Sinicization, really.?!

Chinese from these two nations are just Chinese. There is no Sinicization of Chinese. And non Chinese are not using any of the Chinese surname as norm. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.192.212.18 (talk) 12:21, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

All top 100 surnames now have an individual page

According to 2018 data. I will be going through and creating entires for 101-200 and many of 201-300 as well, as well as filling in more information about origins, statistics and more for 1-100. You can view here:

—Prisencolin (talk) 08:04, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

@Prisencolin: thanks! the colour scheme though... blue on brown background makes it hard to read. – robertsky (talk) 09:17, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

@Robertsky:, you’re very welcome. The color scheme is just copied from the Chinese version of the template. I’m open to suggestions on a better alternative.—Prisencolin (talk) 15:14, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

@Prisencolin: That list of 100 names only contains 98 names. There are only 23 names in the 51 to 75 bracket of names. Not sure what the missing names are. Kordishal 16:12 22 Aug 2021 (CET)