China Mulls More Surnames for Children
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
(06-12) 20:09 PDT BEIJING, China (AP) --
China may soon allow double surnames for children, state media reported Tuesday, in a move aimed at ending confusion in a country where most people share just 100 family names.
Under a proposal distributed to police departments around the country by the Ministry of Public Security, parents called Zhou and Zhu would have four options when naming their newborns, the China Daily reported.
Their child's surname could be Zhou, Zhu, Zhouzhu or Zhuzhou.
The newspaper said the reason for the proposal was because the limited number of surnames meant a large number of people end up with the same name.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences has reported that at least 100,000 people in China have the name "Wang Tao", the newspaper said.
In April, a survey reported by Xinhua News Agency said that Wang was the most common surname in China, with about 93 million people sharing the name. That was followed by Li with about 92 million and Zhang with about 87 million.
Officials said about 85 percent of China's 1.3 billion population share about 100 surnames.
Currently, Chinese law says that a newborn can have the surname of either the father or the mother, but does not mention a combined surname.
The newspaper did not give any other details or say when the change would be implemented.