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.)