Chinese Surname

[kidd]

What is the most common chinese surname and which is the rarest?

[Laboomsikashod]

The most common 3 are (1) Li 李, (2) Wang 王, (3) Zhang 张.

Any surname that I'm actually aware of probably won't be the rarest. But I think Linghu is pretty rare...

Also... are Dongfang and Dugu actual chinese surnames? (nvm, checked on wikipedia, they are)

[kidd]

I guess this surname can be considered one of the rarest.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10982393

But according to the local newspaper in Shandong, computers do not recognise the local variant of Shaan, a cross between the symbol for "three" and the sign for "and".

Can't picture what word is that. According to the news, the member of this family has to change their surname because computer system can't find this character.

[Ian Liew]

I was always told since I was a kid that Chan Lei Cheong Wong Hor (Chen Li Zhang Huang He) were the five most common surnames, but maybe that's just for Guangzhou or the Cantonese regions. The Hundred Family Surnames poem starts with Zhao Qian Sun Li, but I don't think Qian is a particularly common surname, so the names are most likely not listed in any particular order.

[kidd]

I was always told since I was a kid that Chan Lei Cheong Wong Hor (Chen Li Zhang Huang He) were the five most common surnames, but maybe that's just for Guangzhou or the Cantonese regions. The Hundred Family Surnames poem starts with Zhao Qian Sun Li, but I don't think Qian is a particularly common surname, so the names are most likely not listed in any particular order.

Yeah, I think the Hundred Family Surname poem didn't arrange the characters in order of commonality. After all, the poem has to make sense. So, the characters would be arrange so that it can create meaning phrase.

I always thought 黃 is common while 王 is rare because I see more 黃 Wongs than 王 Wongs. You see a lot of HK stars with Wong as surname has this 黃 Wong. But, when I check the ranking in wikipedia, 王 rank higher.

From wikipedia, the top 5 chinese surname in 2006 (how they got this result) are
Li 李
Wong 王
Cheung 張
Lau 劉
Chan 陳

Seems like Ho (何) has drop out of the rank and has been for quite some time, since it's rank 21 in 1990 and 18 in 2006.

The surname with the largest drop between 1990 and 2006 is 佘 (Seh). From 26 to outside the top 100 list. Haha, I didn't even know Seh used to be such a common surname. I thought it was one of the rare ones.

[junny]

I was always told since I was a kid that Chan Lei Cheong Wong Hor (Chen Li Zhang Huang He) were the five most common surnames, but maybe that's just for Guangzhou or the Cantonese regions. The Hundred Family Surnames poem starts with Zhao Qian Sun Li, but I don't think Qian is a particularly common surname, so the names are most likely not listed in any particular order.

Indeed, they're not listed in order of the most common. It is more of a reflection of who was influential at that time.

Zhao - surname of the Song dynasty imperial family
Qian - surname of the kings of the coastal Kingdom of Wuyue (吴越, 970-978)
Sun - surname of the wife of the last Wuyue king Qian Chu
Li - surname of the kings of Southern Tang (南唐, 973-975)

Both Wuyue and Southern Tang were part of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (907-979) - both were part of the Ten Kingdoms. As the poem was composed in the early part of the Song dynasty, Zhao was listed first because of its status as a royal surname.

[Guo Xiang]

I guess this surname can be considered one of the rarest.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10982393


Can't picture what word is that. According to the news, the member of this family has to change their surname because computer system can't find this character.

Another example how our lives are dictated by computers.

[Lucre]

I find Sun & Li more common actually. ^_^ Qian and Zhao less so, though I have met people with these surnames too.