Strange Surnames (as in not too common)

[roddy]

Came across 嵇 today. This meets my definition of strange as

1) I've never seen it before. Must be obscure

2) No entry in Wenlin beyond 'surname'.

3) Looks funny.

[skylee]

嵇康 was a famous figure in Chinese history.

[OneEye]

Came across 嵇 today. This meets my definition of strange as

1) I've never seen it before. Must be obscure

2) No entry in Wenlin beyond 'surname'.

3) Looks funny.

Chinese Pera-kun's definition is "(surname), name of a mountain."

[outcast]

纸 is my chosen chinese surname.

[outcast]

Nope, because my full chinese name is 纸老虎。Chinese aren't the only ones who invented paper.......

[outcast]

Didn't bother visiting the forums yesterday.

[outcast]

Whatever you say, hehe.

[xiaocai]

This reminds me of one of my friends back in high school whose surname is "母". I don't know if anyone else has come across people with this surname or not but she is the only one (two in fact, including her dad) living in my city.

The thing is, not only the surname itself is already quite unusual and a bit funny to most of us, but any common surname would also sound kind of awkward with this unique family name. Luckily she is a girl, and the feminineness of the name is not really a bit issue for her, and we all became used to it after just a few days.

But sometime after, we had come up with another question, that is "What's her dad's name?" Coz everyone of us thought that it is impossible for a guy with this surname to have an "ordinary" given name. After bugging her with the same question for a million times, she eventually gave away the answer and surprisingly, its a very common given name and sounds totally acceptable.

Due to confidential reasons I think it might be a bit inappropriate to post her real name here. But it is very easy to track down her personal info with google with her name, the only one could be found on internet as a matter of fact. And I still remember once we were talking about where her surname was from, she said,"I have no idea, but luckily I'm a girl and my kid doesn't have to follow my surname anymore." And she also told us that her mom's surname is "朱", and she would become "母朱氏" if she had married her dad 500 years ago...

And anyone here has read 《笑傲江湖》? 令狐冲 got a hard time addressing a girl whose surname is "老". And later it turns out that her full name is "老不死"...

咦，才发现我又挖坟了⋯⋯

[Lu]

令狐 Linghu. Sounds like a name from a Jin Yong novel (hell, it is a name from a Jin Yong novel), but it's also the surname of the Taiwanese ambassador to the Marshall Islands. The fact that there is an actual person with this name makes it so much cooler :-)

[skylee]

I heard my co-workers reading aloud job applicants' names for record cross-checking (this is the way they work). And they said 慕容XX, and I went and rushed to check if I had heard correctly. And they told me, "Yeah, a 慕容, and when we phoned him we called him 慕容公子 and everyone (including this 慕容 guy) had a good laugh." :D

Actually the name is not that rare. I just haven't met any real person with this name.

[zozzen]

My colleague has a surname "米".

Everyone asks "Is it a surname? "

He firmly says yes "Do you know 米奇老鼠"?

his ancestor 米芾 is a great calligraphist in ancient china.

[imron]

Met a person today whose surname is 秘 - pronounced bì

[peterlkj]

Has anyone come across people using 邳 as a surname? According to the dictionary it is a surname, but I haven't come across anyone (apart from me!) using it.

[Lu]

Was to look up the characters for one professor Shi Yinhong. I thought that Shi must be either 施, 石 or 史. Turns out the man's name is 時殷弘. I had heard of that surname, but never actually came across it.

Peter: according to google, it looks like at some point there has been someone named 邳彤, and that's all I could find with a quick search. Looks like a very rare surname indeed.

[muyongshi]

Ran across one a week or so ago: 薛

(disclaimer: could be common, but not common enough that I've ever run across it)

[skylee]

薛 is quite common. One of the main female characters in the Dream of the Red Chamnber has this surname.

[muyongshi]

Quick question about how much geography will play a role in the "commonness" of a name. While I can not say that I have met anywhere near all 90 million that live in sichuan, I have never even SEEN that 薛, so could some uncommoness be due to the location??

[Lu]

I think it's definitely location-related. Don't know about within China proper, but for all of China proper, the most common surnames are 張, 劉, 王 and 李; in HK there are also many 張 and 李, but also a lot of 梁; and in Taiwan it's all 陳 and 林. I once met a mainland couple who said they'd never met someone with my surname, 施. In Taiwan I've met several people who share this surname. But then, people tell me 盧 is rare, and I know four people with this name (not related to each other).

薛 doesn't count as a rare one, I think, but all the same I've only met one person with this surname so far (not counting the ones in the HLM).

[zhwj]

In terms of regional variation, the new novel 八月狂想曲 by Xu Kun uses the surname 旷 as part of one subplot in which the mayor of a northeastern city finds his relatives on Taiwan because that surname isn't too common on the island. Don't know if that's actually the case or not.

[Lu]

the surname 旷 (...) that surname isn't too common on the island. Don't know if that's actually the case or not.

I can't tell you for sure, but as far as I can remember this is the first time I see that surname, in Taiwan or anywhere else. (Or was this the surname of Wang Lihong's character in Se Jie?) Is it more common on the mainland then?