The Book of 100 Family Names was a children’s book compiled by a Hangzhou scholar during the Song Dynasty. It details the many surnames in China, which were arranged in the book according to the most common family names at the time (despite its name, the book features a total of 438 family names).

The authorities recently issued a new version of the book however, which shows that the three most common family names today are—perhaps unsurprisingly—Li, Wang, and Zhang.

The book shows that 7.9 percent of people in China have the surname Li, 7.4 percent have the surname Wang and 7.1 percent have the surname Zhang. The “Three Big Names” account for a total of 270 million people in China, making them the most common surnames not only in the Middle Kingdom, but also in the world.   

The book also states that the 100 most common family names today are held by 87 percent of the population. The most common names (in order) are: Li, Wang, Zhang, Liu, Chen, Yang, Zhao, Huang, Zhou, Wu, Xu, Sun, Hu, Zhu, Gao, Lin, He, Guo, and Ma (李、王、张、刘、陈、杨、赵、黄、周、吴、徐、孙、胡、朱、高、林、何、郭、马).

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Keywords: common family names in China most common family names in China Book of 100 Family Names