Chinese surname (百家姓) origin lookup. 42 of the most common surnames, indexed by the Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka and Hainanese spellings used across Singapore and Malaysia. Clan history, famous figures, rank.
Chinese Surname Origin (百家姓查询)
How to use
Enter surname
Use a Chinese character (王/李/陈) or any romanisation (Wang/Lee/Tan/Chan).
View origin
See the clan's origin, 百家姓 lineage, and historical context at a glance.
Meet famous figures
Representative figures from this surname — emperors, scholars, generals, modern celebrities.
Cross-reference diaspora forms
Hokkien/Cantonese/Vietnamese romanisations — helping overseas Chinese trace their ancestral home.
百家姓: The Thousand-Year Imprint of Chinese Identity
The 《百家姓》(Hundred Family Surnames) was compiled in the early Northern Song dynasty (~960 CE) and ranks alongside the 三字经 and 千字文 as one of the three classical Chinese primers. It catalogues 504 surnames (444 single-character + 60 two-character compound) and opens with "Zhao Qian Sun Li, Zhou Wu Zheng Wang" — Zhao first because it was the surname of the Song imperial house.
Modern surname distribution
According to the PRC Ministry of Public Security's 2019 national name report, mainland China (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) has more than 6,000 surnames in use, yet the top 100 cover 85.9% of registered residents. The 2020 report found that the top five (Wang, Li, Zhang, Liu, Chen) alone account for 30.8%. In the ministry's April 2007 count, Wang stood at 7.25%, Li at 7.19% and Zhang at 6.83%. This extreme concentration is the residue of historical clan expansion — imperial bestowals, hereditary office, mass migration.
The diaspora story
Chinese surnames in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand mostly trace back to two source regions: southern Fujian / Hokkien (Tan, Lim, Ng, Goh, Chua, Heng) and Guangdong / Cantonese (Chan, Lee, Wong, Leung, Ho, Lau). The varied romanisations are not spelling errors — they record dialect pronunciation. 陈 is "Tan" in Hokkien (Singapore/Malaysia), "Chan" in Cantonese (Hong Kong), and "Chen" in Mandarin (China/Taiwan). A modern Singaporean Tan and a Hong Kong Chan are often distant cousins via the same Fujianese clan that splintered across the South China Sea during the 19th-century Nanyang migration.
This tool uses public-domain data from the Hundred Family Surnames text and the PRC Ministry of Public Security's household-registration statistics. It is for cultural and genealogical interest only — not a legal or registry document.
Zhao opens the list because the emperor was a Zhao
The Hundred Family Surnames was compiled circa 960 CE with 504 entries. Zhao opens it not because it was numerous, but because it was the Song imperial surname — a political courtesy, not a census.
Mainland China has more than 6,000 surnames in use (Ministry of Public Security, 2019 name report). The top 100 cover 85.9% of registered residents, and the 2020 report puts the top five at 30.8%.
Wang (7.25%), Li (7.19%) and Zhang (6.83%) were China's top three surnames in the Ministry of Public Security's April 2007 count — about 272 million people between them.
Many top surnames mirror imperial dynasties: Li (Tang), Liu (Han), Zhu (Ming), Zhao (Song). Imperial bestowals and intermarriage with the royal house caused massive demographic expansion of these names.
Chen / Tan is the #1 surname in Fujian, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia — reflecting the disproportionate role Fujianese migrants played in shaping ethnic-Chinese communities across Southeast Asia during the 19th-century "Nanyang" migration.
The same Chinese surname has multiple romanisations reflecting dialect pronunciation: 陈 → Tan (Hokkien/SG-MY), Chan (Cantonese/HK), Chen (Mandarin/CN-TW), Trần (Vietnamese).
Two-character "compound surnames" like Ouyang, Sima, Shangguan, Zhuge mostly began as official titles or place names. Few people carry them today.
The Ma surname has a disproportionately high presence among Hui Muslims in China — because many Hui chose 馬 (Ma) as a Chinese rendering of the "Mu-" syllable in Muhammad.
In Taiwan a married woman may still put her husband's surname before her own (e.g. 陈林秀美 = née Lin, married into Chen), but it is optional: Civil Code Art. 1000 says each spouse keeps their own surname, and taking the other's needs a written agreement registered with the household registration office. Rare today in HK/SG/MY; effectively abolished in mainland China after 1950.
Pairs with our Chinese name stroke analyzer, baby name suggester and business name analyzer — together, a Chinese naming reference set.
Frequently Asked Questions
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The tool covers 42 surnames — the most common single-character ones in mainland China plus two notable compound surnames — and indexes their Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka and Hainanese spellings. China has 6,000+ surnames in total, so rarer ones aren't included. If your usual spelling isn't recognised, try the Chinese character or the Mandarin pinyin.
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Yes. The tool accepts Mandarin pinyin (Wang/Li/Zhang), Hokkien (Tan/Lim/Ng — common in SG/MY), Cantonese (Chan/Wong/Lau — common in HK), and Vietnamese (Trần/Lý/Trương) romanisations.
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Yes. Both 张 / 張 and 陈 / 陳 are recognised. Results display both simplified and traditional forms when they differ.
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Ranks follow the PRC Ministry of Public Security's annual 全国姓名报告 surname list. Population shares are mainland household-registration shares: Wang 7.25%, Li 7.19% and Zhang 6.83% are from the ministry's April 2007 analysis; the smaller shares are approximate, and counts from different years differ slightly. Taiwan, HK, SG/MY, and overseas Chinese communities rank surnames quite differently — Chen is #5 in mainland China but #1 in Fujian, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia, and Zhuo (Toh) is outside the mainland top 100 but 65th in Taiwan.
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The tool provides the historical origin and cultural background of a surname — a useful starting point for genealogy research. It does not include individual family trees, member records, or specific lineage data. For ancestor tracing, consult local gazetteers, ancestral hall (宗祠) records, or specialised genealogy databases.
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Because romanisations record dialect pronunciation. A 19th-century Fujianese migrant to Singapore would register their surname as "Tan" using Hokkien pronunciation; a 1950s Cantonese migrant to Hong Kong would register the same character 陈 as "Chan". This is why Singaporean Tan and Hong Kong Chan are often the same surname in different dialects.
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The Hundred Family Surnames is a cultural text, not a modern census — the relative populations of its 504 entries have shifted dramatically over 1,000 years. As a primer and origin reference, however, it remains valuable. Modern research typically cross-references it with present-day household-registration statistics.
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No. Bin (son) / Binti (daughter) in Malay names are Arabic-influenced patronymics — not surnames. Malaysian Chinese retain Chinese surnames with romanised spelling (e.g. Tan Cheng Lock = 陈祯禄).
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Yes, but DNA results don't always match clan records. Y-chromosome DNA (paternal inheritance) can trace common ancestors among same-surname males, but imperial bestowals, adoption, and surname changes mean that surname and DNA lineage are not always identical. Requires a specialised genetic testing service.
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Data comes from the public-domain Hundred Family Surnames text (Song dynasty, ~960 CE), the PRC Ministry of Public Security's 全国姓名报告 rankings, population shares from the ministry's April 2007 household-registration analysis, and diaspora spellings from the Singapore Department of Statistics' Census 2000 table of the top 20 Chinese surnames and open dialect research. This tool is for cultural and genealogical interest only — not a legal or registry document.
Method & sources
How it computes
A lookup, not a calculation: 42 surnames (40 single-character and 2 compound) are matched by character — simplified, traditional or the 邱/丘 variant — or by any indexed romanisation (Mandarin pinyin with or without tones, plus the Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka, Hainanese and Vietnamese spellings), and the entry returns the clan-origin account, the surname's modern PRC rank, its national population share, notable bearers and the diaspora spellings with the dialect group each one records.
What this tool implements
- Ranks follow the PRC Ministry of Public Security 《全国姓名报告》 top-100 order (the 2020 report's top five, 王李张刘陈, hold 30.8% of the registered population); a surname outside the top 100 is labelled with the list its rank comes from and is never given a guessed number.
- Population shares are the Ministry of Public Security's April 2007 household-registration analysis (王 7.25%, 李 7.19%, 张 6.83%). They are national mainland shares and say nothing about Taiwan, Hong Kong or Southeast Asia, where 陈/Tan and 林/Lim rank first and second.
- Origins are the traditional 姓氏起源 accounts descending from the Song primer 《百家姓》 and later genealogical compendia; where a clan has several accounts the entry says so. These are lineage traditions, not verified descent.
- Diaspora spellings are dialect-group romanisations: a spelling is listed only where its dialect attribution could be sourced (Singapore Census 2000 surname tabulation and dialect-group references), and a spelling shared by two surnames (Toh for 杜/卓, Ko for 高/许, Fung for 冯/洪) is noted rather than silently assigned.
Sources
- 《百家姓》(北宋, c. 960s). Chinese Text Project: https://ctext.org/hundred-family-surnames/zh
- 公安部治安管理局. 全国户籍人口姓氏统计分析 (2007年4月) — 王 9,288.1万 (7.25%), 李 9,207.4万 (7.19%), 张 8,750.2万 (6.83%); reported 25 Apr 2007: http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2007-04-25/001911706546s.shtml
- 公安部户政管理研究中心.《二〇二〇年全国姓名报告》(2021-02-08) — 王李张刘陈 hold 30.8% of the registered population: https://www.mps.gov.cn/n2254314/n6409334/c7726021/content.html
- 袁义达, 邱家儒.《中国四百大姓》. 南昌: 江西人民出版社, 2013. ISBN 978-7-210-05461-0.
- Singapore Department of Statistics. Popular Chinese Surnames in Singapore — Top 20 Chinese surnames, Census of Population 2000 (Tan 237,800 / 9.5%; Lim 166,000 / 6.6%). Archived copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20080223075738/http://www.singstat.go…
What can make this go out of date
- The Ministry of Public Security 《全国姓名报告》 is annual (each January/February); ranks near the top-100 cutoff move from year to year.
- Population shares are the 2007 snapshot and are not refreshed; the 2013 《中国四百大姓》 and later reports give slightly different shares.
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