Chinese surnames are used by Han Chinese and Sinicized ethnic groups in Greater China, Korea, Vietnam and among overseas Chinese communities around the world such as Singapore and Malaysia. Written Chinese names begin with surnames, unlike the Western tradition in which surnames are written last. Around 2,000 Han Chinese surnames are currently in use, but the great proportion of Han Chinese people use only a relatively small number of these surnames; 19 surnames are used by around half of the Han Chinese people, while 100 surnames are used by around 87% of the population. A report in 2019 gives the most common Chinese surnames as Wang and Li, each shared by over 100 million people in China. The remaining eight of the top ten most common Chinese surnames are Zhang, Liu, Chen, Yang, Huang, Zhao, Wu and Zhou.
The Hakka, sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas, are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka Chinese-speaking areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhejiang, Hainan, and Guizhou in China, as well as in Taoyuan City, Hsinchu County, Miaoli County, Pingtung County, and Kaohsiung City in Taiwan. Unlike other Han Chinese subgroups, the Hakkas are not named after a geographical region, e.g. a province, county or city, in China. That is because their origins were of northern Chinese refugees fleeing social unrest, upheaval and invasions throughout the northern parts of China throughout history who then sought sanctuary in the south where the Cantonese-speaking provinces such as Guangdong and Guangxi are. The Chinese characters for Hakka literally mean "guest families". The word is Cantonese in origin and as the name implies, they are the guest of the Cantonese people. Over the centuries though, they have since more or less assimilated with the Cantonese-speaking population. Modern day Hakka are generally identified by both full Hakka and by different degrees of Hakka ancestry and usually speak Hakka Chinese.
Chinese names are personal names used by individuals from Greater China and other parts of the Sinophone world. Sometimes the same set of Chinese characters could be chosen as a Chinese name, a Hong Kong name, a Japanese name, a Korean name, a Malaysian Chinese name, or a Vietnamese name, but they would be spelled differently due to their varying historical pronunciation of Chinese characters.
The Macanese people are a multiracial East Asian ethnic group that originated in Macau in the 16th century, consisting of people of predominantly mixed Cantonese and Portuguese as well as Malay, Japanese, English, Dutch, Sinhalese, and Indian ancestry.
A Chinese kin, lineage or sometimes rendered as clan, is a patrilineal and patrilocal group of related Chinese people with a common surname sharing a common ancestor and, in many cases, an ancestral home.
Chinese folk religion, also known as Chinese popular religion, comprehends a range of traditional religious practices of Han Chinese, including the Chinese diaspora. Vivienne Wee described it as "an empty bowl, which can variously be filled with the contents of institutionalised religions such as Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and Chinese syncretic religions". This includes the veneration of shen (spirits) and ancestors. Worship is devoted to deities and immortals, who can be deities of places or natural phenomena, of human behaviour, or founders of family lineages. Stories of these gods are collected into the body of Chinese mythology. By the Song dynasty (960–1279), these practices had been blended with Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist teachings to form the popular religious system which has lasted in many ways until the present day. The present day government of mainland China, like the imperial dynasties, tolerates popular religious organizations if they bolster social stability but suppresses or persecutes those that they fear would undermine it.
"Guo", written in Chinese: 郭, is one of the most common Chinese surnames and means "the wall that surrounds a city" in Chinese. It can also be transliterated as Cok, Gou, Quo, Quach, Quek, Que, Keh, Kuo, Kwo, Kuoch, Kok, Koc, Kwee, Kwek, Kwik, Kwok, Kuok, Kuek, Gock, Koay, or Ker. The Korean equivalent is spelled Kwak; the Vietnamese equivalent is Quách. The different ways of spelling this surname indicate the origin of the family. For example, the Cantonese "Kwok" originated in Hong Kong and the surrounding area. In the Philippines, it's "Que", "Ke", "Quepe", and "Kepa". It is the 18th most common family name in China and can be traced as far back as the Xia dynasty. There are eight legendary origins of the Guo surname, which include a Persian (Hui) origin, a Korean origin, and a Mongolian origin, as a result of sinicization. However, the majority of people bearing the surname Guo are descended from the Han Chinese.
The Han Chinese people can be defined into subgroups based on linguistic, cultural, ethnic, genetic, and regional features. The terminology used in Mandarin to describe the groups is: "minxi", used in mainland China or "zuqun", used in Taiwan. No Han subgroup is recognized as one of People's Republic of China's 56 official ethnic groups, in Taiwan only three subgroups, Hoklo, Hakka and Waishengren are recognized.
Chinese Australians are Australians of Chinese origin. Chinese Australians are one of the largest groups within the global Chinese diaspora, and are the largest Asian Australian community. Per capita, Australia has more people of Chinese ancestry than any country outside Asia. As a whole, Australian residents identifying themselves as having Chinese ancestry made up 5.5% of Australia's population at the 2021 census.
Ding is a Chinese family name. It consists of only 2 strokes. The only two characters that have fewer strokes are "一" and "乙".
Shanghainese people in Hong Kong have played an important role in the region, despite being a relatively small portion of the Han Chinese population. "Shanghainese" is a term that refers to both the Wu Chinese language and the Han Chinese subgroups from the city of Shanghai and the peoples of the Jiangnan region in Hong Kong more broadly, particularly those with ancestral homes in parts of southern Jiangsu (Kiangsu), northern Zhejiang (Chekiang) and Anhui provinces.
Waishengren, sometimes called mainlanders, are a group of migrants who arrived in Taiwan from mainland China between the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II in 1945, and Kuomintang retreat and the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. They came from various regions of mainland China and spanned multiple social classes. The term is often seen in contrast with benshengren, which refers to Hoklo and Hakka people in Taiwan who arrived prior to 1945 who had lived under Japanese rule. The term excludes other ethnic Chinese immigrants and later immigrants from mainland China.
Australians, colloquially known as Aussies, are the citizens, nationals and individuals associated with the country of Australia. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or ethno-cultural. For most Australians, several of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being Australian. Australian law does not provide for a racial or ethnic component of nationality, instead relying on citizenship as a legal status.
Shanghainese people are an ethnic group of Shanghai Hukou descent or people who have ancestral roots from Shanghai. Most Shanghainese are descended from immigrants from nearby provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu. According to 1990 census, 85% of Shanghainese people trace their ancestry to Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Only a minority are Shanghai natives, those with ancestral roots in Shanghai.
A spirit tablet, memorial tablet, or ancestral tablet is a placard that people used to designate the seat of a deity or past ancestor as well as to enclose it. The name of the deity or the past ancestor is usually inscribed onto the tablet. With origins in traditional Chinese culture, the spirit tablet is a common sight in many East Asian countries, where forms of ancestor veneration are practiced. Spirit tablets are traditional ritual objects commonly seen in temples, shrines, and household altars throughout Mainland China and Taiwan.
Chinese spiritual world concepts are cultural practices or methods found in Chinese culture. Some fit in the realms of a particular religion, others do not. In general these concepts were uniquely evolved from the Chinese values of filial piety, tacit acknowledgment of the co-existence of the living and the deceased, and the belief in causality and reincarnation, with or without religious overtones.
Chinese ancestor veneration, also called Chinese ancestor worship, is an aspect of the Chinese traditional religion which revolves around the ritual celebration of the deified ancestors and tutelary deities of people with the same surname organised into lineage societies in ancestral shrines. Ancestors, their ghosts, or spirits, and gods are considered part of "this world". They are neither supernatural nor transcendent in the sense of being beyond nature. The ancestors are humans who have become godly beings, beings who keep their individual identities. For this reason, Chinese religion is founded on veneration of ancestors. Ancestors are believed to be a means of connection to the supreme power of Tian as they are considered embodiments or reproducers of the creative order of Heaven. It is a major aspect of Han Chinese religion, but the custom has also spread to ethnic minority groups.
Hongkongers, Hong Kongers, Hong Kongese, Hongkongese, Hong Kong citizens and Hong Kong people are demonyms that refer to the resident of Hong Kong, although they may also refer to others who were born and/or raised in the territory.
An ancestral shrine, hall or temple, also called lineage temple, is a temple dedicated to deified ancestors and progenitors of surname lineages or families in the Chinese tradition. Ancestral temples are closely linked to Confucian philosophy and culture and the emphasis that it places on filial piety.
Cen is the Mandarin pinyin romanization of the Chinese surname written 岑 in Chinese character. It is romanized Ts'en in Wade–Giles, and variously as Sam, Sum, Sham, Shum in Cantonese, Gim, Khim, Chim in Taiwanese Hokkien and Chen in other pinyin forms. Cen is listed 67th in the Song dynasty classic text Hundred Family Surnames. As of 2008, it is the 235th most common surname in China, shared by 340,000 people. Cen is considered a rare surname. A person with a rare surname like Cen may be able to trace his or her origins to a single ancestral area.
