The origin of China's surname can be traced back to the Fu period about 5,000 years ago. "Songs of the South" records: "Fuxi, a tribal leader in ancient legends, was named Feng, namely Tai Hao". According to legend, he began to draw gossip and teach people to catch livestock to fill the kitchen. This is the first person who started to have a surname in the history of China, and also the person who "took a proper surname and didn't get married" since Fu. Before Fuxi, the "Sui Ren Shi" who invented wood drilling for fire and the "You Chao Shi" who used wood as a nest were still surnames, but they didn't have surnames. Surnames are unified now, but in the early days of the origin of surnames, surnames and surnames were two different concepts.

There are differences between surnames and surnames, and their meanings are different. Surnames are used to indicate maternal descent. For example, in ancient times, surnames such as Jiang, Ji, Yi, Ying and Yao all came from the female side, and the word "surname" itself consisted of the words "female" and "born". Until the Zhou Dynasty, surnames were originally the names of tribes with the same surname, and later they specifically referred to tribal leaders. Later, due to the emergence of the country, different official positions appeared, and many of these official positions later became surnames.