姓氏 (xìng shì): family name

In China, the family name usually comes before the given name; for example, if a person's family name is Wang, they are called Wang Xiaoming.

Some Japanese family names come from place names, some from occupations, and many were adopted when the Meiji government required everyone to have one.

It was only after I checked the family genealogy that I learned our family's surname wasn't the current one originally; it was changed later to escape the chaos of war.

On official documents, please write your family name and given name clearly, and don't mix up the order.

When the family names of ethnic minorities such as Mongolians and Manchus are translated into Chinese, often only the Chinese character for the first syllable is taken as the surname.