Only 4,100 of the 24,000 family names used throughout China's 5,000 years of history are still in use today.

The findings were the result of a two-year research project by Yuan Yida, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who supervised a survey of 300 million people across the country.

The reductions in China's name base were caused by several factors, Yuan found. Many minorities switched to Han surnames when they came under the influence of the country's dominant culture, he said.

This was especially true in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), when a large number of ethnic minorities melded into Han communities.

The other reason for the loss was that some names simply died out because they were not shared by many people, the researcher said.

Surnames are not evenly distributed throughout China's geography. In northern China, Wang is the most common surname, being shared by 9.9% of the population. Next are Li, Zhang and Liu). In the south, Chen is the most common, being shared by 10.6% of the population. Next are Li, Huang, Lin) and Zhang. Around the major crossing points of the Yangtze River, the most common surname is Li , taking up 7.7%, followed by Wang, Zhang , Chen and Liu.

Chinese surnames are very meaningful
Surname is an important symbol of the passing on of culture not only in China but also in the whole world. However, it is only in China that they are handed down in the most complete and meaningful manner.

For example, there were only a few surnames in Japan before the Meiji reform. The emperor, out of needs for reform, decided that all Japanese people should have surnames. As a result, more than 80,000 surnames sprang up in a short period of time, most of them bear no origin or meaning but simply indicate locations such as Matsushita (literally means "under the pine"), Inoue ("above the well") and "Tanaka ("in the field"). Therefore, it's hard for Japanese scholars to link their surnames with human genetics.

How to address a person with their correct and proper title may be one of the most complicated aspects of Chinese culture.

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