News to whom?

Well, I suppose there aren't a lot of them.

From A Welsh View (link in sidebar) we have the story that most of the country shares about a hundred family names. (Most Chinese Share Just 100 Family Names) I have quite a lot of Chens (陈) in my classes here, and there's a house just near the police station on Maiyuan Lu (麦园路) where some branch of the Chen family lived (although whether it's still theirs, I don't know). It could be a common name locally.

I'd hazard a guess that a lot of Chinese surnames may have merged because various sound changes have limited Mandarin to a small number of possible syllable types.

(A trip to Danwei revealed The year 2006, baby names, and surname ranks. Let it not be said that Mr Bamboo doesn't keep you informed.)

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