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Chinese surnames are used by Han Chinese and Sinicized ethnic groups in Greater China, Korea, Vietnam and among overseas Chinese communities around the world such as Singapore and Malaysia. Written Chinese names begin with surnames, unlike the Western tradition in which surnames are written last.
Chinese names are used in China and in Chinese communities throughout the world. Note that depending on the Chinese characters used these names can have many other meanings besides those listed here. See also about Chinese names.
29 mar 2019 · Originally, Chinese surnames were written using Chinese characters, or hanzi (汉字). However, descendants of overseas Chinese are often left only with their ancestors’ romanized names—“Francis Fung” or “Benjamin Lee,” for instance.
15 sie 2023 · According to ancient documents, the earliest surname in China was "Feng", and the earliest surnames were "Fuxi", "Shennong", "Nuwa's" and so on. The most commonly used ones in China are "Li", "Wang", "Zhang", "Liu", "Chen", "Yang" and so on. 100 common surnames, accounting for about 85% of China's total population.
Origin of Chinese surnames. Prior to the Warring States Period (fifth century B.C.E.), only the royal family and the aristocratic elite in China used surnames. Until the Qin Dynasty (third century B.C.E.), while China was largely a feudal society, both family names (Chinese: 姓; pinyin: xìng) and clan names (氏; pinyin: shì), were used.
Some nomads who settled to live inside China often chose some Chinese characters as their family surname, as is the case with the people named "Dang" who mostly lived in the northwestern part of China. In the period of the North Song Dynasty (960-1127), someone published a book called 《百家姓》.
Chinese names are different from Western names. They start with the family name followed by the given name. The family name usually has one syllable. All the top 100 Chinese family names have only one syllable and these surnames cover about 85 percent of mainly China’s citizens.
