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| Eight Great Surnames of Chinese Antiquity | |||||||
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| Chinese | 上古八大姓 | ||||||
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The eight great surnames of Chinese antiquity were among the most important Chinese surnames in Chinese antiquity. [1] [2] They are all Chinese ancestral surnames [ citation needed ],and as such,have Chinese clan surnames branching off from them. [3] During the earliest Chinese antiquity,Chinese society focused on women. Family names often passed from women to their children. Because of this phenomenon,these eight surnames have a component of their hanzi representing the character woman (女). [1] [4]
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As of 2019,very few people had one of these surnames as a family name. [2] An exception is the surnames Yao [5] [2] and Jiang. [6] [2] Of these,there are some well-known Chinese of modern times with these names today. One example is Yao Ming (姚明). [7]