The Most Common Last Name in Every Country | Hacker News Reader

The Most Common Last Name in Every Country

mentalfloss.com

9 pointsgmays10 comments

The map seems to miscategorize "Tan" from Singapore and Malaysia [1]. The surname Tan is actually the same surname as "Chen" (陳/陈) in Taiwan [2], just pronounced differently. The mapmaker seems to have confused it with another, less common Chinese character [3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_Chinese_surname...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_Chinese_surname...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tan_(surname)

You seem to know a lot about Chinese/Singaporean names. There’s something that I’ve been wondering for a while. I know a few people with the same surname in Chinese “黄” but different pinyin on their ID with either “Ng”, “Huang”, or “Eng”. Afaik they are siblings with the same parents so why are their last names different?

All three are valid choices for 黄. In principle, people may choose different romanizations, but it does seem unusual for siblings in the same family choose differently.

"Huang" comes from the Mandarin Chinese pronunciation, which is by far the most commonly spoken form worldwide, and widely preferred in schools, media, business, etc. One possible reason to prefer this spelling is for name recognition from numerous other Mandarin Chinese speakers, or even non-Chinese speakers familiar with common Chinese surnames.

"Ng" and "Eng" come from Min Nan Chinese, which is a common spoken form among local communities in Singapore and Malaysia, among other places. Min Nan hasn't been as widely standardized as Mandarin, so spellings may vary. Some people may prefer these spellings, which more closely aligns with how their family, friends, and other locals pronounce their names.

Ah thank you. That makes a lot of sense. I’m from Malaysia myself but never bothered learning Hokkien or Chinese and am regretting it a bit now. Don’t even know how names work in my own family

Huh, that's interesting. "Ivanov" was going to be my guess for Russia, followed by maybe "Kuznetsov" - but the actual result here is "Ivanova", which is the feminine version.

(In Russia, your last name changes based on your gender. If Irina marries Ivan Ivanov, her last name will become Ivanova. This is considered to be the same last name. And yes, it can cause annoying issues when traveling abroad, especially with children, when your last names don't seem to match.)

I wonder if it has something to do with the slightly higher-than-average male mortality rate?

Same in Iceland (with the patronymic surname on the feminine), but not Bulgaria or Belarus.

The map isn't loading for me strangely. Tried incognito mode as well.

Does this link work for anyone? https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/v1714485913/...

Works fine for me on the east coast of the U.S., not on a VPN.

A lot of people were smithing in the English world. Or perhaps they were just especially fecund.

sigh. They picked "devi" for India. "Devi" is not a last name. Literally it means "goddess". Its used as a suffix to indicate "woman"/"lady". If they picked "Devi" for India, they should have picked "Mr"/"Mrs" for the US.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com