2006-11-01 16:35:40 · 14 answers · asked by Bob 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Cultures & Groups ➔ Other - Cultures & Groups
Ummm well I think its because their last names should only have one syllable. And really, how many creative one syllable last names are there?? lol
2006-11-01 16:43:44 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 3⤋
It's not as if every Chinese person has Lee or Chen or Liu as their last names. Look at every other ethnic group - they all have some last names that are very common. For instance, about a fifth of the Hispanics in my grade at my old school had the last name of Hernandez. There are a lot of Nguyens for the Vietnamese, a lot of Schneiders for the Germans, etc.
Myself, I have the last name of Lung, meaning dragon in Chinese, which definitely isn't one of the most common last names. However, if I go back to a village in Jiangxi where my great-great-grandfather lived, I see the majority of the village sharing my last name because that's where we came from.
Note:
Also, somebody else brought up a good point up there. When anglicized, our names might all look the same, but there are often several different characters for the same name. Chan might be pronounced the same in English, regardless of the actual character, but when said in Chinese, the accents will vary. It's sort of like this example I like to use: the Chinese characters for horse, mother and numb can all be spelled in pinying as "ma" but they are pronounced very differently in Chinese.
2006-11-02 00:46:40 · answer #2 · answered by Glory Box♥ 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
There are only about 100 Chinese family names. Family names go back much further than English surnames, which for most people is less than 500 years ago.
2006-11-02 02:45:31 · answer #3 · answered by Isolde 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
my freinds last name is Sumargono he is from Indoniseia and he is half chinese. Maybe its to make up for there long first names?
2006-11-02 01:59:39 · answer #4 · answered by pythonicbeauty 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
yes chinese ppl have common last names .... but when they needed to write in chinese word its a whole lot different meaning
2006-11-02 00:44:08 · answer #5 · answered by questions 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Not sure, maybe its because there are so many chinese people now, they have more people just in china alone then what we have as a hole nation in australia,
2006-11-02 00:47:41 · answer #6 · answered by ros_0123 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Hmmm yeah that's a good question. I guess because their family names are short that's why many of them are similar or the same.
2006-11-02 04:06:10 · answer #7 · answered by ispakles 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
same reason why Americans do.
Johnson, Jackson, Smith, Bennett, Anderson, Washington, Cole, Williams, Franklin, King, Moore, Wilson.......the list goes on and on.
2006-11-02 00:40:06 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
You mean like Smith, Jones, and Brown?
2006-11-02 00:44:49 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
It's because their last name is their family name.
That's why u get names like Chan, Lee & Kong as their last name.
It's not because they have lack of imagination !
:)
2006-11-02 00:39:50 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋