Chan rules in name game
WHAT do Chief Secretary Anson, kung fu superstar Jackie, and Andely the murdered Sun Yee On 'Tiger of Wan Chai', have in common? According to a survey, their surname, Chan, is the most popular in Hong Kong.
Chans dominate the Hong Kong name game, leading with 10.11 per cent of the population. Chan was followed by Wong (7.78 per cent) and Lee (6.02 per cent).
'Chan is very popular throughout China, as is Lee. The name is found from the north to the south of China. Wong tends to come more from the southern regions,' said Professor of Chinese intellectual history at Baptist University, Chan Wing-ming.
'The name Chan is believed to be traced back to a fiefdom established around the eighth century BC.
The survey was conducted by the International Bank of Asia for its personalised family credit card scheme. Two months were spent ploughing through hundreds of pages of residential telephone directories and recording over 400,000 names.
Two of the most common names in the New Territories, Man and Liu, did not make the top 20 most popular names list. But Tang, also a prominent name in the New Territories, was 15th, making up 1.93 per cent of the population.
