[Ghost_of_Han]

I understand that Wang is a dead surname. Are there anyothers?

[DaMo]

You mean extinct?

Wang is one of the most common Chinese surnames.

I heard that Sima is an extinct family name, but did not verify.

[Kulong]

What? Wang is a dead surname? Hahaha my surname is Wang, how do you explain that? :P

Wang is "dead" in Korea because during one of the Korean dynasties, all those witht he surname Wang were being executed so many of those who survived changed their surname.

[Shadowfax]

One interesting fact about Chinese surnames is that China and Taiwan each uses a different system to translate Chinese words and surnames into English. For example, Luo in China is Lo in Taiwan.

[Kulong]

Shadowfax, on Jul 12 2004, 12:21 AM, said:

One interesting fact about Chinese surnames is that China and Taiwan each uses a different system to translate Chinese words and surnames into English. For example, Luo in China is Lo in Taiwan.

That's not really interesting. Mainland China currently uses Hanyu Pinyin, which accurately reflects spoken Mandarin Chinese. Taiwan still mostly use a bastardized version of Wade-Giles romanization system which was made up more than 100 years ago based on spoken Mandarin back then and no longer, if it ever, reflect spoken Mandarin. Some parts of Taiwan is adopting Hanyu Pinyin like Taipei City.

[General_Zhaoyun]

Wang surname (王) is not dead.. in fact, it's a common surname.

The surname Sima is almost dead, but not extinct.

[Ghost_of_Han]

王, isn't this the symbol for king as well?

[General_Zhaoyun]

Yes, that character means "king" or "prince"..apparently, some clan wanted their surname to be named after "king" hehee.. :P

[Yun]

Kulong, while Wade-Giles is certainly not a satisfactory rendering of Chinese pronunciation, I think it would be giving Hanyu Pinyin too much credit to say that it does a perfectly accurate job. Hanyu Pinyin has confusing idiosyncracies of its own - try getting a non-Chinese speaker to pronounce Xuan, Quan, Cuan and Zuan, and it will be really difficult. And if he gets the hang of it, he'll then be confused by why Xiu, Qiu, and Jiu are spelt thus, instead of Siu, Ciu and Ziu.

While I'd agree that Ch'ao and Ch'ou aren't an accurate transliteration, why should Zhao and Zhou be preferred over Jao and Jou? And I've yet to see a foreigner read Cao Cao more easily than Ts'ao Ts'ao.

[Kulong]

Yun, on Jul 12 2004, 03:25 PM, said:

Kulong, while Wade-Giles is certainly not a satisfactory rendering of Chinese pronunciation, I think it would be giving Hanyu Pinyin too much credit to say that it does a perfectly accurate job. Hanyu Pinyin has confusing idiosyncracies of its own - try getting a non-Chinese speaker to pronounce Xuan, Quan, Cuan and Zuan, and it will be really difficult. And if he gets the hang of it, he'll then be confused by why Xiu, Qiu, and Jiu are spelt thus, instead of Siu, Ciu and Ziu.

While I'd agree that Ch'ao and Ch'ou aren't an accurate transliteration, why should Zhao and Zhou be preferred over Jao and Jou? And I've yet to see a foreigner read Cao Cao more easily than Ts'ao Ts'ao.

Hanyu Pinyin wasn't invented for foreigners, especially English speakers <_<

The advantage of Hanyu Pinyin is that every single distinct sound in Mandarin Chinese has its own symbol, unlike Wade-Giles.

For example, in Wade-Giles, "ch" represents "j", "ch", "q", and "zh". Tell me that isn't confusing.

Zhao and Zhou should be prefered over Jao and Jou because "J" is already used for the "ji" sound.

Again, Hanyu Pinyin isn't made for foreigners. It was invented to teach children to prounounce Mandarin Chinese, a replacement for 注音符號 Zhuyin Fuhao.

[Hanqing]

General_Zhaoyun, on Jul 12 2004, 11:39 AM, said:

Wang surname (王) is not dead.. in fact, it's a common surname.

The surname Sima is almost dead, but not extinct.

hi hi,
trying to revive a dead topic here...

I do hope the Sima surname is not extinct. It has a very interesting history of famous people like Sima Qian, Sima Xiangru, Sima Yi, Sima Guang (the last of the famous Sima I know).

But what about Sikou (司寇), Sikong (司空)? Are these surnames still surviving?

I am curious to know if there's still anyone with the surname Xuanyuan 轩辕? This is the surname of Huangdi 黄帝, am I right?

[Klamath]

How about Ling hu (令狐）（令狐冲），Du Gu（独孤）（ 独孤皇后）， Mu rong(慕容）
Tan tai (澹台）


Huangdi 's surname is Gongsun(公孙）, his full name is 公孙轩辕

[qrasy]

Did you mean wang1 汪 or wang2 王?

[AhMan]

There was the surname ling (without hu). In the past there was a famous linghu something (during age of fragmentation or 5 dynasty/10 kingdoms i don't remember exactly) and many people wanted to change their surnames from ling to linghu.

[Goujian]

All above names still exist, though very few relative to other surnames.
Have you heard of surnames with numbers, like one, two, three and combination, now that's really rare, but they exist. If you know Chinese, you can access those information, very interesting.

On last night's documentary about caved housing, I also found surnames with female radicals, those surnames of ancient empeors, like Ji, still exist in Shannxi province.