Chinese SurnamesThe 100 most common last names in China, with audio

• The surname comes first: in 李娜 (Lǐ Nà), 李 is the surname.
• Almost all surnames are one character. Two-character surnames such as 欧阳 exist but are rare.
• Children usually take the father's surname — among babies born in 2020, the ratio was 12 to 1 — and women keep their own surname when they marry.
• The same surname can be spelled many ways in English: 陈 is Chen in pinyin, Chan in Hong Kong and Tan in Singapore and Malaysia.

Ranked by the number of people, from China's Ministry of Public Security (2019). Cantonese spellings follow the Hong Kong government system. Wade-Giles is the older spelling system behind most Taiwan spellings, which usually drop the apostrophe (Ch'en → Chen).

Many surnames share a sound — Zhāng can be 张 or 章 — so people describe the parts of the character when they introduce themselves. You will hear these all the time on the phone and at reception desks.

Chinese families abroad often spell their surname from Cantonese, Hokkien or Teochew rather than Mandarin. That is why Mr Tan from Singapore and Mr Chen from Beijing share the surname 陈.

Two-character surnames are rare today, but many are famous from history and from martial-arts novels. Numbers are from the 2020 national name report.

Some characters are read differently when they are surnames. Getting these right makes a great first impression.

《百家姓》 is a rhyming list of surnames written in the Song dynasty, about 1,000 years ago, and learned by children for centuries. It is not a ranking: 赵 comes first because it was the surname of the Song emperors. Here are its famous opening lines.