Editing Chinese name (section)

==History==
Although some terms from the ancient Chinese naming system, such as {{Lang|zh-latn|xìng}} ({{zhi|c=姓}}) and {{Lang|zh-latn|míng}} ({{zhi|c=名}}), are still used today, it used to be much more complex.

In the first half of the 1st millennium BC, during the [[Zhou dynasty]], members of the Chinese nobility could possess up to four different names{{mdash}}personal names ({{Lang|zh-latn|míng}} {{zhi|c=名}}), clan names ({{Lang|zh-latn|xìng}} {{zhi|c=姓}}), lineage names ({{Lang|zh-latn|shì}} {{zhi|c=氏}}), and "style" or "courtesy" names ({{Lang|zh-latn|zì}} {{zhi|c=字}}){{mdash}} as well as up to two titles: standard titles ({{Lang|zh-latn|jué}} {{zhi|c=爵}}), and posthumous titles ({{Lang|zh-latn|shì}} {{zh|first=t|t=諡|s=谥|labels=no}} or {{Lang|zh-latn|shìhào}} {{zh|first=t|t=諡號|s=谥号|labels=no}}).{{sfnp|Wilkinson|2012|p=113}}

Commoners possessed only a personal name ({{Lang|zh-latn|ming}}), and the modern concept of a "surname" or "family name" did not yet exist at any level of society.{{sfnp|Wilkinson|2012|p=113}}  The old lineage ({{Lang|zh-latn|shi}}) and clan names ({{Lang|zh-latn|xing}}) began to become "family names" in the modern sense and trickle down to commoners around 500 BC, during the late [[Spring and Autumn period]], but the process took several centuries to complete, and it was not until the late [[Han dynasty]] (1st and 2nd centuries AD) that all Chinese commoners had surnames.{{sfnp|Wilkinson|2012|pp=113–115}}