Chinese Surname

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Hundreds or thousands of Chinese family names have been historically used by Han Chinese and Sinicized Chinese ethnic groups in mainland China, Taiwan, and among overseas Chinese communities. In ancient times two types of surnames, family names (Chinese: pinyin: x¬ng) and clan names (; pinyin: sh¬), existed. The colloquial expressions laobaixing, and bix¬ng are used in Chinese to mean "ordinary folks," "the people," or "commoners." Bijix¬ng is also used to call the list of one hundred most common surnames. Chinese family names are patrilineal, passed from father to children. (In cases of adoption, the adoptee usually also takes the same surname.)