Chinese surnames

Chinese surnames are used by Han Chinese and Sinicized ethnic groups in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and among overseas Chinese communities. In ancient times two types of surnames existed, namely xing (Chinese: ; pinyin: xìng) or lineage names, and shi (Chinese: ; pinyin: shì) or clan names.

Chinese family names are patrilineal, passed from father to children. (In cases of adoption, the adoptee usually also takes the same surname.) Women do not normally change their surnames upon marriage, except in places with more Western influences such as Hong Kong. Traditionally Chinese surnames have been exogamous.

The colloquial expressions laobaixing (老百姓; lit. "old hundred surnames") and bǎixìng (, lit. "hundred surnames") are used in Chinese to mean "ordinary folks", "the people", or "commoners".

Prior to the Warring States period (fifth century BC), only the ruling families and the aristocratic elite had surnames. Historically there was also a difference between clan names or xing (姓) and lineage names or shi (氏). Xing were surnames held by the noble clans. They generally are composed of a nü (女, "female") radical which has been taken by some as evidence they originated from matriarchal societies based on maternal lineages. Another hypothesis has been proposed by sinologist Léon Vandermeersch upon observation of the evolution of characters in oracular scripture from the Shang dynasty through the Zhou. The "female" radical seems to appear at the Zhou period next to Shang sinograms indicating an ethnic group or a tribe. This combination seems to designate specifically a female and could mean "lady of such or such clan". The structure of the xing sinogram could reflect the fact that in the royal court of Zhou, at least in the beginning, only females (wives married into the Zhou family from other clans) were called by their birth clan name, while the men were usually designated by their title or fief.

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