Family names is considered as an extremely important property by Chinese people. A Chinese will change his family name under no circumstance.
Most Chinese family names are only one Chinese character with 2 to 6 letters and pronounced as one syllable only. Very few are two characters and they are called as “double family names”. Double family names are mostly from and used by people other than “Han People” in China.
Chinese people who are from Taiwan, Hong Kong, or other Southeast Asian Countries may have their family names spelled differently. For example, Li could be spelled as Lee by Hong Kong Chinese people and Ly by Chinese people from Vietnam. Wang could be Wong; Wu could be Ng; etc.
Therefore, a Chinese from Hong Kong family named Ng and a Chinese from mainland family named Wu actually have the same family name. And there is a popular Chinese saying that is people have same family names are from one family 500 years before.
