Lots of People and Few Last Names?

There are only 700 last names used in China (Corriere della Sera). Chinese also use a very small number of fist names which means that confusion exists to identify people. In Shangai one out ten residents has Zhang as last name. In Shangai there are four thousand people whose names are Jie (first) Chen (last name). It’s worse in Beijing where one out five residents is named Wang (last name). The most common last name in Chinese is “li.” Italy, on the other hand , has 350 thousand different last names. Last names in Italy are based on names of people, of place, professions or nicknames. Most trace their origins to the Middle Ages. Spanish has a different situation. There aren’t very many last names and it’s often the case that the first born is given the name of the father if male and mother if she is female. Yet, Spain uses a second last name (the mother’s) in addition to the fathers (Juan García Lopez). The second last name helps identifies the person although the father’s (García) would be the one determining an alphabetized list.