
“Would Mr. Wang please raise his hand?” |
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| I’m sure you’ve heard the joke/saying “He’s got more Chins than a Chinese phonebook.” That’s funny to me not because it’s a common name in China, but because it’s totally uncommon. Most of the 1.3 billion people in China share the same 100 surnames, and I don’t recall ever meeting someone named Chin. Anyway, the lack of surnames has to be a nightmare when it comes to identifying people in a conversation in China, especially since there are so many homonyms in Chinese, meaning that there are a lot of similar given names, as well. I can only imagine how hairy it can be. |
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In case you’re curious, and before I get to what the Chinese government is doing about it, here’s a small breakdown of the most common surnames in China. China has…
- 93 million people surnamed Wang (王)
- 92 million people surnamed Li (李)
- 88 million people surnamed Zhang (张)
- 20 million people with one of 7 other surnames, including Chen (陈), Zhou (周) , and Lin (林)
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| Those are pretty huge numbers. So what is the Chinese government doing about it? They’re now allowing people to combine surnames for their newly-born children (and in general, I suppose? The article wasn’t very clear). For example, if Mom is surnamed Wang (王) and Dad is surnamed Zhou (周), baby could be surnamed Wangzhou (王周) or Zhouwang (周王). It’s a really simple thing, and it’ll open up another 1.28 million new possible surnames according to the article I’m pulling my facts from (link below). Pretty cool idea, huh? |
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| Du Roufu, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences said that a lot of younger couples are already combining their surnames like that, “even though such combinations were not strictly permitted by law.” [begin sarcasm] Well, at least the government has its priorities straight. I’ve always thought last names should be strictly regulated. We can’t have people running around being in charge of their own names, now can we?[end sarcasm] |
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