The Chinese people's names

The Chinese have had family names for 5000 years. The Hundreds of family names, which were popular during the ancient times, were written in North Song Dynasty (A.D.960). The whole book contains 408 single family names and 30 double family names, 438 in all. It develops up to 4000 to 6000 family names; however, there're only 1000 family names used today.

The Chinese name involves two parts—the family name in front and then the given name. While spelling the name, the family name and the given name should be written divided. And it is the rule that the capital letters of both the family name and given name must be capitalized. There're two types of Chinese family names—the single ones and the double ones, in which the former ones are much more common than the latter. Nowadays, the most common single family names in China are Li, Wang, Zhang, Liu, and Chen. On the other hand, the double family names seem rare; the most common ones are Zhuge, Ouyang, Sima, Duanmu, and Gongsun etc. According to the tradition, Chinese people often follow their father's family name, only a few of people follow the mothers'. After marrying, there's no need for women to change their family name. 

As for the given name, it could be two characters, as well as a single one. Many Chinese people have three—character name, and the second or the third character which is the name of a clan's seniority which symbolizes a special meaning.