The Origin of Surname

Surname also known as family name in Chinese is called Xin Shi ”姓 氏”. These were evolved from Totang use to identify tribes 5000 years ago.

Xin Shi “姓氏”originally have different meaning between Xin “姓”and Shi “氏”. Xin “姓”as it is written represent Children that was born (生) by Women(女),in a maternal society, Children that are born by the same women are deem to be from the same family and have a same family name as their mother. As the society evolved from a maternal society to a paternal society, the family has also change from having the mothers' name to the father's name. As the family growth, members from the family start to move away to different places. Despite the shift, member of the same family will continue to retain their family name Xin “姓” while adopt another word to differentiate from other branches. This is know as Shi “氏”. In a family, there can always be one Xin “姓” while having many different Shi“氏”.

Xin Shi have it main revolution in the Chun Qiu Period “春 秋战国”when the Zhou “周”started to col lap. The distinction between Xing and Shi became ambiguous. Many family name use nowadays are originated from that period.

In the Xi Han “西汉”, the differences between Xing “姓” and Shi “氏”have evolved to be so minute that most people will mix the two into one as what we do nowadays.

According to study, there used to be approximately 12,000 family name in China. However, there are only about 3000 family name commonly used now.

Family name was once use not only to distinguish family members but also to distinguish their hairaki in the society. It is also commonly rule that the members of the same family are not allowed to marriage each other. This same rule are still respected by many nowadays.