List of common Chinese surnames

These are lists of the most common Chinese surnames in the People's Republic of China (Hong Kong, Macau, and Mainland China), the Republic of China (Taiwan), and the Chinese diaspora overseas as provided by the authoritative governments or academic sources. Chinese names also form the basis for many common Cambodian, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese surnames, and to an extent, Filipino surnames in both translation and transliteration into those languages.

The conception of China as consisting of the "old hundred families" (Chinese: 老百姓; pinyin: Lǎo Bǎi Xìng; lit. 'Old Hundred Surnames') is an ancient and traditional one, the most notable tally being the Song-era Hundred Family Surnames (Chinese: 百家姓; pinyin: Bǎi Jiā Xìng). Even today, the number of surnames in China is a little over 4,000,[1] while the year 2000 United States census found there are more than 6.2 million surnames altogether[2] and that the number of surnames held by 100 or more Americans (per name) was just over 150,000.[3]

The Chinese expression "Three Zhang Four Li" (simplified Chinese: 张三李四; traditional Chinese: 張三李四; pinyin: Zhāng Sān Lǐ Sì) is used to mean "anyone" or "everyone",[4] but the most common surnames are currently Wang in mainland China[5] and Chen in Taiwan.[6] A commonly cited factoid from the 1990 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records estimated that Zhang was the most common surname in the world,[7] but no comprehensive information from China was available at the time and more recent editions have not repeated the claim. However, Zhang Wei (张伟) is the most common full name in mainland China.[8]

The top five surnames in China – Wang, Li, Zhang, Liu, Chen – are also the top five surnames in the world, each with over 70-100 million worldwide.

  1. ^ "我国汉族公民最长姓名达15字 公安部：起名不规范会有不便" [My Country's Han Citizens' Longest Name Reaches 15 Characters.]. Xinhua Net (in Chinese). 12 December 2007. Archived from the original on 13 December 2007. Retrieved 16 March 2012.
  2. ^ Word, David L. & al. "Demographic Aspects of Surnames from Census 2000" Archived 2010-10-13 at the Wayback Machine. 26 June 2001. Accessed 3 February 2012.
  3. ^ United States Census Bureau. "Genealogy Data: Frequently Occurring Surnames from Census 2000" Archived 2009-12-21 at the Wayback Machine. 27 September 2011. Accessed 29 March 2012.
  4. ^ Prest, Kevin. "X三Y四: Similar Chinese Idioms (Chengyu)" Archived 2011-03-10 at the Wayback Machine. 4 March 2011. Accessed 5 April 2012.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Eastday was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference MOI was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ McFarlan, Donald. 1990 Guinness Book of World Records. Sterling Pub. Co., 2001. ISBN 189205101X.
  8. ^ Beijing News. "一个“张伟”找到29万人" Archived 2007-09-14 at the Wayback Machine　[One Name 'Zhang Wei' Covers 290,000 People]. 26 July 2007. Accessed 16 March 2012. (in Chinese)