List of common Chinese surnames
These are lists of the most common Chinese surnames in the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China, and the Chinese diaspora overseas as provided by government 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" is an ancient and traditional one, the most notable tally being the Song-era Hundred Family Surnames. Even today, the number of surnames in China is a little over 4,000, while the 2000 United States census found there are more than 6.2 million surnames altogether and that the number of surnames held by 100 or more Americans was just over 150,000.
The Chinese expression "Three Zhang Four Li" is used to mean "anyone" or "everyone", but the most common surnames are currently Wang in mainland China and Chen in Taiwan. 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, but no comprehensive information from China was available at the time and more recent editions have not repeated the claim. However, Zhang Wei is the most common full name in mainland China.
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.
China
This list of the 100 most common Chinese surnames derives from China's Ministry of Public Security's annual report on the top 100 surnames in China, with the latest report release in January 2020 for the year 2019. When the 1982 Chinese census was first published, it did not include a list of top surnames. However, in 2004, the State Post Bureau subsequently used the census data to release a series of commemorative stamps in honor of the then-most-common surnames in 2004.The summary of the 2007 survey revealed China had approximately 92,881,000 Wangs, 92,074,000 Lis, and 87,502,000 Zhangs.
A 2018 survey showed that Liu and Chen were the next most common China with more than 70 million each.
These top five surnames – Wang, Lee, Zhang, Liu, Chen – alone accounted for more people than Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world,
The next five – Yang, Huang, Zhao, Wu, and Zhou – were each shared by more than 20 million Chinese. Twelve moreXu, Sun, Ma, Zhu, Hu, Guo, He, Gao, Lin, Luo, Zheng, and Liangwere each shared by more than 10 million.
All together, the top hundred surnames accounted for 84.77% of China's population.
Surname list
Other surveys
400 character list
In 2013, the Fuxi Institution compiled a ranking of the 400 most common surnames in China.Taiwan
According to a comprehensive survey of residential permits released by the Taiwanese Ministry of the Interior's Department of Population in 2016, Taiwan has only 1,503 surnames. The top ten surnames in Taiwan accounted for 52.77% of the general population, and the top 100 accounted for 96.56%.Other surveys
Philippines
s whose ancestors came to the Philippines from 1898 onward usually have single syllable Chinese surnames. On the other hand, most who have Chinese ancestors who came to the Philippines prior to 1898 usually have multiple-syllable Chinese surnames such as Cuyegkeng, Gokongwei, Ongpin, CuUnjieng, Pempengco, Yuchengco, Teehankee, Tansipek, and Yaptinchay among such others. These were originally full Chinese names which were transliterated in Spanish orthography and adopted as surnames.Common Chinese Filipino surnames are: Tan/Chan, Dy/Dee/Lee/Li, Sy/See/Siy/Sze, Lim/Lam, Chua/Choa/Choi, Yap/Ip, Co/Ko/Kho, Ko/Gao/Caw, Ho/Haw/Hau/Caw, Cua/Kua/Co/Kho/Ko, Coo/Gu/Ku/Khu/Cu, Go/Ngo/Wu, Ong/Wong, Ang/Hong/Hung, Lao, Tiu/Cheung, Yu/Young, Auyong/Awyoung, Ng/Uy/Wee/Hong/Wong/Huang, Tiu/Chiu/Chio/Chu, Chu/Chiu/Chow, King, Chan, Ty/Tee, Ching/Cheng/Chong, Que/Cue/Kwok, Leong/Liong/Leung, etc.
There are also multiple-syllable Chinese surnames that are Spanish transliterations of Hokkien words. Surnames like Tuazon, Dizon, Samson/Sanson, Sison, Guzon/Gozum/Gozon/Goson, Lacson, Tecson/Ticzon/Tiongson/Teoxon, Sioson and Hizon are examples of transliterations of designations that use the Hokkien suffix -son used as surnames for some Chinese Filipinos who trace their ancestry from Chinese immigrants to the Philippines during the Spanish colonial period. The surname "Timkang" is listed in the Chinese text Hundred Family Surnames, perhaps shedding light on the Hokkien suffix -Kang used here as a surname alongside some sort of accompanying enumeration scheme.
| Rank | Name | Character | Total number |
| 1 | Tan | 123,290 | |
| 2 | 106,507 | ||
| 3 | Lim | 96,874 | |
| 4 | 66,516 | ||
| 5 | 57,840 | ||
| 6 | Chua | 51,380 | |
| 7 | 47,832 | ||
| 8 | Ong | 39,649 | |
| 9 | Yap | 37,703 | |
| 10 | Go | 37,354 | |
| 11 | 36,543 | ||
| 12 | 29,718 | ||
| 13 | Sy | 28,038 | |
| 14 | Yu | 27,732 | |
| 15 | / | 26,833 | |
| 16 | / | 25,555 | |
| 17 | , | 24,835 | |
| 18 | / | 23,732 | |
| 19 | Ang | 洪 | 23,341 |
| 20 | 22,679 | ||
| 21 | 17,900 |
Canada
has not released a list of common surnames for any of its recent censuses, but much of the Canadian Chinese population is clustered in Metro Vancouver and Greater Victoria in British Columbia and the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area and the Ottawa-Gatineau Area in Ontario, as well as in some emerging major clusters, such as the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor in Alberta, Montreal, and the Communauté métropolitaine de Québec in Quebec.Ontario
A 2010 study by Baiju Shah & al data-mined the Registered Persons Database of Canadian health card recipients in the province of Ontario for a particularly Chinese-Canadian name list. Ignoring potentially non-Chinese spellings such as Lee, they found that the most common Chinese names in Ontario were:Indonesia
Nearly as large is the Chinese Indonesian community. The 2010 Indonesian census reported more than 2.8 million self-identified Chinese, or about 1% of the general population. Just as in Thailand, though, previous legislation had banned ethnic Chinese surnames throughout the country. This law was abolished after the removal of Suharto, but Chinese Indonesian names remain a mix of Indonesian, pinyin, pe̍h-ōe-jī, and Dutch-spelled Hokkien.Malaysia
During the 2010 Malaysian Census, there were approximately 6,960,000 Malaysians of Chinese ethnicity. The Chinese are the second largest ethnicity in Malaysia, after the Malays.Singapore
make up almost three-fourths of Singapore's resident population of nearly four million.2000
According to Statistics Singapore, as of 2000, the most common Chinese Singaporean names were:- As most Singaporeans of Chinese descent have ancestors which originated from Southern China, mainly from Fujian, Guangdong and Hainan, the distribution of surnames in Singapore is quite different from that of Mainland China.
- As there are a variety of dialect groups in Singapore, the same surname in Chinese characters may be romanised in several different ways in Singapore. Some less common Chinese transcriptions of the 20 most common romanised surnames may not be listed in the table above.
Newer version
Thailand
The largest Chinese diaspora community in the world are the Chinese Thais, who make up 12–14% of the total Thai population. However, very few Chinese Thais have Chinese surnames, after the 1913 Surname Act that required the adoption of Thai surnames in order to enjoy Thai citizenship. Moreover, the same law requires that those possessing the same surname be related, meaning that immigrant Chinese may not adopt the surname of their clansmen unless they can show actual kinship.United States
The 2010 US Census found 3,794,673 self-identified Chinese Americans and 230,382 self-identified Taiwanese Americans, up from 2,734,841 Chinese Americans and 144,795 Taiwanese Americans in 2000.Although the Chinese make up the largest segment of the U.S. Asian and Pacific Islander population, the most common Chinese-derived surname during the 2000 census was not itself Chinese but the Vietnamese Nguyễn.
During the 2000 census, the 10 most common Chinese American names were:
; Other surveys