2.1. What Is in a Name?

The first surname surprise struck me when I was a schoolgirl. In another class of my school there was another student bearing the same family name as mine – Katsubo. I considered myself unlucky with so many classmates not having their namesakes. Then I got married and adopted my husband’s name thus becoming Pleskacheuskaya. This is a usual confusion with female surnames in my country. I have two female cousins born with the same family name as mine – Katsubo – but these days they are Tarabenko and Yushkovskaya and it is hardly believable three of us have the same grandmother. Very often I think that Chinese in this regard are wiser than we are: females generally don’t adopt their husbands’ names when getting married. Very likely they are right: what is given at birth determines fate.

What is more important – individual or society? Rhetorical question, one that could be argued for life time. For my mind, in many aspects family names mirror the national values. For example, in China if a person’s name is Zhang Wei, then Zhang is a surname. In other words the Chinese determines his affiliation with the family clan and then his place in this clan – in our case name Wei. Friends and colleagues address each other by surname, not a name. In case if Zhang is an elderly person he can be referred to as “Lao Zhang” (old Zhang) and if he is a teenager people would call him “Xiao Zhang” (young Zhang). This rule is firm and obeyed. 

Nowadays China (at least its big cities) is strongly affected by Westernization. Rules of naming are undergoing changes even if not quickly. Many Chinese communicating with foreigners on a daily basis adopt foreign names – just for convenience. But you also have to be prepared to adopt a Chinese name if entering the Heavenly Kingdom for a long period of time. This adopted Chinese name would be written in all official papers.

If the name of your fellow Chinese friend is among laobaixing (“one hundred old family names”), it means he is inseparable part of the state he lives in. But in the country with 1.3 billion people is it enough to have just 100 surnames? Thus the one of the most amazing problems China faces today is a shortage of family names.

Scientists and officials advise people to be more resourceful naming their children; it will help in future to avoid confusion. Some Chinese have names and surnames of two characters each. But such lucky people are more exception than a rule. Most Chinese have surname written with the only character and name written with one or two. This problem is especially topical for big cities in which thousands of people have the same names written with the same characters. Chinese newspapers quite often publish stories on erroneous arrests, bank accounts mistakes or even fallacious surgeries – all these because of names confusion.

Recent survey discovered that nowadays there are around 3,100 family names in use in China, but 99.4 percent of the population squeezed in just 500 of them. Just imagine – quarter of the country’s population, near 350 million, share just five surnames – Li, Wang, Zhang, Liu and Chen. In Beijing alone more than 5,000 people named Zhang Li and Liu Hui live. There is no surprise at all that boundaries of many parts of the country remain virtually the same for almost 4,000 years and the local people are proud of their close relations with the ancestors bearing the same family name. The seven most widespread Chinese surnames are Li, Wang, Zhang, Liu, Chen, Yang and Zhao and they were used as early as the Song Dynasty (960 – 1278). Authors of the fundamental scientific research One Hundred Modern Chinese Surnames maintain that during the whole Chinese history only 10,000 family names have been in use.

The fact that 100 million of the Chinese can be described as the “average Zhao” on the one hand makes easier generalizations and work of sociologists. But how difficult it was for indigenous population in times when the country was ruled by the foreigners! During the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) one of the provincial rulers named Zaixiang Boyan (see the difference?) was so set against dominating Han population that in 1337 he appealed to the Emperor Shun for permission to kill every resident of his province surnamed Zhang, Wang, Liu, Li and Zhao. The action might have been simple and effective way to finish off huge number of people. Luckily, the emperor refused this appeal.

Power and prestige played a big role in surviving or, on the contrary, in eradicating family names in history. Surname Zhao experienced its heyday during the Song Dynasty, Liu was in zenith during the Han Dynasty (206 BC–AD 220) and Li became the most spread during the Tang Dynasty (618–907).

Family name Wang literally means prince or ruler and the majority of ancestors of the modern bearer of this name probably had royal blood. The most famous story about the origins of this name tells about inventive heir to the throne lived during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. When the boy was 15 years old, he dared to advise his father, the emperor, on how to cope with flood. For this impudence he was deprived of the right to ascend the throne. With time descendants of the young prodigy dissolved amongst commoners but kept calling their clan Wang in memory of the might-have-been emperor.  

The story of Li family name that translated as a plum is not that simple. It can be traced as far back as to the court of the legendary ruler Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor. His principle adviser was a person named Mu Tao. He had the title Da Li, or the head of the emperor’s court. It is claimed that a magic unicorn with abilities to tell the difference between truth and lies was his helper. Moreover, this unicorn used his horn to kill infringers. Because Mu Tao was strong and fair, later during Xia and Shang (1600 BC–1046 BC) periods the name Li became associated with order, principle and cause and was rather popular.

Ironically, the character for this surname has been changed in 11^th century BC, when Emperor Zhou of the Shang Dynasty executed his head judge Li Zheng. His wife and a child escaping from death made their way to the remote kingdom and nearly starved to death during the trip. They survived on eating plums growing on trees along the road. So, 90 million contemporary Lis in some way give due to this event. But of course not all of them – some of them are likely the descendants of the Taoism founder Lao Zi, as he was also surnamed Li. 

Well, talking about sages, don’t forget the greatest of them (at least as people in China think) – Confucius. I have a feeling that people in his home town Qufu and outskirts are properly share his name Kong. It can also be met around Shaoxing city to which some of the Great Teacher’s descendants moved centuries ago. Group of my colleagues from Belarus once visited Qufu and told me after the visit about dining experience with one of the Confucius descendants. This is true – they are still living in the home town of the great sage. Generally, almost all family names that are in use today’s China originate from some outstanding historical figures.

Some Chinese names, especially those not widespread, basically concentrated in one or two localities often originate from the rulers of an ancient state or identify themselves with a definite ethnos living in the region. The surname Tan, that is widespread in Hubei Province today, was first mentioned during the Han Dynasty when the local population regarded as a barbarian a person named Tan Zhun. Since that time this family name was often given to minorities’ representatives.

Well then, who is number one in China? Recently statistics affirmed that the first position is taken by Wangs – there are around 100 million of them in mainland China. But population census of 2000 changed the picture in favor of Zhangs: there are more than 0.1 billion of people with such name. So, it is very likely Zhang is the most widespread family name in the world. Lis finished third in this race.

Book “Chinese Customs and Wisdoms” (translated into English by the author) was published in Beijing in 2007 by the Foreign Language Press