How many surnames do Chinese people have?
How many surnames do Chinese people have? The "Hundred Family Surnames" written in the Song Dynasty collected 442 single surnames, 61 compound surnames, and 503 surnames. "Surnames" compiled by Chen Shiyuan in the Ming Dynasty collected 3,625 single and compound surnames. In 1978, relevant departments conducted a survey on the use of Chinese surnames in seven major cities through the household registration and postal and telecommunications departments. The total number of surnames obtained was 2,587. Among them, 2,250 are in Beijing, 1,640 in Shanghai, 1,270 in Shenyang, 1,574 in Wuhan, 1,245 in Chongqing, 1,631 in Chengdu, and 1,802 in Guangzhou. In 1984, the "Compilation of Chinese Surnames" (edited by Yan Fuqing and others) published by People's Posts and Telecommunications Press collected 5,730 single and compound surnames. However, the "Zhonghua Surname House" written by Taiwanese scholar Wang Sucun has collected as many as 7,720 ancient and modern Chinese surnames. But that's not an exact number yet. According to the "Chinese Surname Dictionary" published by Beijing Educational Science Press in 1996 (edited by Yuan Yida and Du Ruofu), there are 11,969 surnames recorded in Chinese characters by all ethnic groups in my country in ancient and modern times, including 5,327 single-character surnames and double-character surnames. 4329, including 1615 three-character surnames, 569 four-character surnames, 96 five-character surnames, 22 six-character surnames, 7 seven-character surnames, 3 eight-character surnames, and one nine-character surname. In addition, there are variant translations and variant characters. There are 3136 surnames. This is the latest statistics on the number of surnames in China so far.
The Chinese surnames used by modern Chinese people need to be further investigated and discovered, especially in traffic-blocked areas that still maintain the ancient pronunciation of the Han and Tang Dynasties, and in ethnic minority areas due to writing barriers, there must be many surnames. Buried among the people.