<div>Hi, Jerry,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Well, I can't. But I do have a (possibly) useful suggestion. I gather that you can read Chinese. So get yourself a copy (electronic, if possible) of telephone directories from as many Chinese cities as you can (you may or may not want to include Taiwan and directories for the 'Chinatown' in various cities with large Chinese-origin populations (eg, San Francisco, New York, etc.), or tag the results by city, etc.). I believe Chinese uses the surname to sort such lists, and presumably has some way of distinguishing what is a surname and what is a given name (eg, apart from the order, hyphens between multiple given names, or writing them together in a romanization). If the list(s) is(are) electronic, simply sort on each field and count. If you are doing a manual search, at least the surnames can be compared as to frequency by counting the number of pages (or columns) which have that name alphabetized. If I am right about the ordering of names, the given names will be a bit more tricky, done manually, obviously. (If I am wrong, then everything is viceversa.)</div>
<div> </div>
<div>If you are not in China, you might try the closest Chinese embassy to you. They might also have some leads for Chinese scholars who might be studying similar areas.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I have done a little work in Mexico on some aspects of Spanish surnames, and found a similar tactic very useful for a small study I did on surnames' orthography.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Jim<br><br> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 3/20/09, <b class="gmail_sendername"><a href="mailto:j_kurjian@hotmail.com">j_kurjian@hotmail.com</a></b> <<a href="mailto:j_kurjian@hotmail.com">j_kurjian@hotmail.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<div>Hi,<br><br>Can anyone point me to a frequency list of Chinese given and/or family names, either in characters or transliterated? <br><br>Thanks,<br>Jerry Kurjian<br><br>
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