百家姓

《百家姓》是汉字文化圈的汉姓记载书，成书于北宋初，作者为钱塘县的一位士大夫。据有关资料记载，原书上共收录姓氏411个，后增加到504个，其中包含单姓444个及复姓60个。

《百家姓》与《三字经》、《千字文》、《千家诗》并称“三百千千”，皆是中国古代的幼儿启蒙读物，因此不断流传，至今依然广为人知。

排序

《百家姓》中各个姓氏排列次序不是以人口数量多少，而是以中国政治史为准则。

根据南宋学者王明清考证，“赵钱孙李”之所以是《百家姓》前四姓，是因为百家姓在北宋初年的吴越钱塘地区形成，所以就用当时最重要的家庭姓氏：

赵氏：宋朝皇帝的姓氏。

钱氏：吴越国王的姓氏。

孙氏：吴越国王钱俶正妃孙太真的姓氏。

李氏：南唐国主的姓氏。

而接下来的四个姓氏“周吴郑王”都是吴越开国国王钱镠的妻子姓氏。

王明清《玉照新志》中记载：“如市井间所印《百家姓》，（王）明清尝详考之，以是两浙钱氏有国时小民所著，何则？其首云‘赵钱孙李’，盖钱氏奉正朔，赵本朝国姓，所以钱次之；孙乃忠懿（钱俶）之正妃；又其次，则江南李氏。次句云‘周吴郑王’，皆武肃（钱镠）而下后妃。”

内容

续编版本在慕容姓后又增加了鲜于和闾丘两个姓，并在司空姓之后又增加了28个复姓和36个单姓：

需要区分繁简的姓氏：于、于、郁、郁、后、后、淳于、单于、鲜于、钟、钟离、党、党（党、党百家姓中只取其一）。

最后一句“百家姓终”仅表示书本已到终点。其中家、终与前文重复，百、姓二字虽均可做姓，但十分少见。

The Hundred Family Surnames (Chinese: 百家姓), commonly known as Bai Jia Xing, also translated as Hundreds of Chinese Surnames, is a classic Chinese text composed of common Chinese surnames. An unknown author compiled the book during the Song dynasty (960–1279). The book lists 504 surnames. Of these, 444 are single-character surnames and 60 are double-character surnames. About 800 names have been derived from the original ones.

In the dynasties following the Song, the 13th-century Three Character Classic, the Hundred Family Surnames, and the 6th-century Thousand Character Classic came to be known as San Bai Qian (Three, Hundred, Thousand), from the first character in their titles. They served as instructional books for children, becoming the almost universal introductory literary texts for students (almost exclusively boys) from elite backgrounds and even for a number of ordinary villagers. Each text was available in many versions, printed cheaply and available to all since they did not become superseded. When a student had memorized all three, he had a knowledge of roughly 2,000 characters. Since Chinese did not use an alphabet, this was an effective, though time-consuming, way of studying character-recognition before going on to understanding texts and writing characters.

Form

The work is a rhyming poem in lines of eight characters. The surnames are not listed in order of commonality. According to Song dynasty scholar Wang Mingqing (王明清), the first four surnames listed represent the most important families in the empire at the time, particularly in the Jiangnan Region:

1st: Zhao (趙) is the surname of the Song dynasty emperors.

2nd: Qian (錢) is the surname of the kings of Wuyue.

3rd: Sun (孫) is the surname of the queen Sun Taizhen of Wuyue king Qian Chu.

4th: Li (李) is the surname of the kings of Southern Tang.

The next four, Zhou 周, Wu 吳, Zheng 鄭, and Wang 王, were the surnames of the other wives of Qian Chu, the last king of Wuyue.

Complete text

This text is written in Traditional Chinese. Note that several of these characters may link to the same article.

Prevalence in modern times

In 2013 the Fuxi Institution compiled a ranking of the 400 most common surnames in China.

Under 300th most common

According to the study, the following surnames from the Hundred Family Surnames are not among the 300 most common surnames:

Yōng 雍 – 339th

Píng 平 – 315th

Mǐ 米 – 316th

Zhàn 湛 – 369th

Under 400th most common

According to the study, the following surnames from the Hundred Family Surnames are not among the 400 most common surnames: