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

The conception of China as consisting of the "old 100 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 US 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.

Greater China

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.^[9] 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.^[10][11]

The summary of the 2007 survey revealed China had approximately 92,881,000 Wangs (7.25% of the population), 92,074,000 Lis (7.19%), and 87,502,000 Zhangs (6.83%).^[5]

A 2018 survey showed that Liu and Chen were the next most common China with more than 70 million each.^[12]

These top five surnames— Wang, Li, Zhang, Liu, Chen—alone accounted for more people than Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world,^[13] and their total number is around the population of the US, the third 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 more – Xu, Sun, Ma, Zhu, Hu, Guo, He, Gao, Lin, Luo, Zheng, and Liang – were each shared by more than 10 million.

All together, the top hundred surnames accounted for 84.77% of China's population.^[5][14] By way of comparison, the 2000 census found the most common surname in the United States – Smith – had fewer than 2.4 million occurrences and made up only 0.84% of the general population. The top 100 surnames accounted for only 16.4% of the US population,^[3] and reaching 89.8% of the US population required more than 150,000 surnames.^[2]

Surname list

Notes

Other surveys

• 2006 multi-year survey and study conducted by Yuan Yida, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences's Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, using a sample size of 296 million spread across 1,110 counties and cities and recording around 4,100 surnames.^[18]
• 1990: Ji Yuwen Publishing House, based on a sample size of 174,900.
• 1987 study conducted by Yuan Yida with a sample size of 570,000.
• 1977 study published by Li Dongming, a Chinese historian, as "Surname" (《姓》) in Dongfang Magazine.

400 character list

In 2013 the Fuxi Institution compiled a ranking of the 400 most common surnames in China.^[19]