The top ten surnames used by about 40% of Chinese - more than 400 people: Zhang, Wang, Li, Zhao, Chen, Yang, Wu, Liu, Huang, and Zhou.

The second ten most popular surnames, used by more than 10% of Chinese: Xu, Zhu, Lin, Sun, Ma, Gao, Hu, Zheng, Guo, and Xiao.

The third ten most popular surnames, used by about 10% of Chinese: Xie, He, Xu (written with a different character from another Xu), Song, Sheng, Luo, Han, Deng, Liang, and Ye.

The following 15 surnames are also used by about 10% of the population: Fang, Cui, Cheng, Pan, Cao, Feng, Wang (written with a different character from another Wang), Cai, Yuan, Lu, Tang, Qian, Du, Peng, and Lu.

So in total, more than 70% of the Chinese population uses the same 45 surnames. The other 30% are less frequently used surnames like Mao, Jiang, Bai, Wen, Guan, Liao, and Chi etc.

  The Origins and Development of Chinese Surnames

The origin of Chinese surnames can be traced back to the matriarchal age in primitive society, when Shi (early surnames) were used to distinguish different tribes. Most of the earliest Chinese surnames, or Shi, which are still in use today, have the word "woman" as a character component. Marriage within a tribe of the same surname was forbidden, and children were raised by and given the surname of their mother's tribe. The development of surnames was a sign of societal progression, demonstrating that Chinese people were aware of the disadvantages of close inter-breeding.

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