| Are you from China? You must be a Wang then |
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| World Affairs Talk | |
| Saturday, 16 June 2007 | |
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Chinese law allows children to take the surname from either their mother or father, but the lack of variety means there are now 93 million people in China with the family name Wang. A nationwide survey conducted by the Ministry of Public Security in April 2007 found 92 million people shared the surname Li, while 88 million were called Zhang. A further seven surnames -- including Chen, Zhou and Lin -- are held by at least 20 million Chinese people. Another report by the Chinese Academy of Sciences found at least 100,000 people share China's most popular name, Wang Tao. Under a new draft regulation released by the ministry of public security, parents will be able to combine their surnames for their children, a move that could open up 1.28 million new possibilities. For instance, a father named Zhou and mother named Zhu could choose to call their child either Zhou, Zhu, Zhouzhu or Zhuzhou. The lack of variety caused trouble in daily life and the new regulation would slash repetition. The proposed draft allows ethnic minorities to register some letters and characters among new names, but bans any foreign letters. The move for ethnic minorities would encourage them to use traditional surnames and avoid the practice of taking Han Chinese surnames, which reduces the variety of names and harms their cultural heritage. Share & Bookmark             |
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| Last Updated ( Monday, 18 June 2007 ) |
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