Chinese compound surname

Chinese surname with multiple characters

A Chinese compound surname is a Chinese surname using more than one character. Many of these compound surnames derive from Zhou dynasty Chinese noble and official titles, professions, place names and other areas, to serve a purpose. Some are originally from various tribes that lived in ancient China, while others were created by joining two one-character family names. Only a few of these names can still be found quite commonly in modern times with Ouyang, Shangguan, Sima and Situ appearing most frequently. Many clans eventually took on a single-character surname for various reasons. Lists below are arranged alphabetically by their Mandarin pinyin spellings.

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