Talking about the Chinese Han People’s surname in ancient China, one should note the difference between “xing” and “shi”. The origin of “xing”, prior to that of “shi” dated back to the matrilineal society. As marriage was forbidden between offsprings of the same matrilineal clan, “xing” came into use to differentiate one matrilineal clan from another for intermarriage. If we examine the composition of Chinese characters, we will find that the radical 女(female) is used in some of the most ancient Chinese “xing”, which is a trace of the matrilineal society. Names of some animals such as “ma”(horse), “xiong”(bear), “long”(dragon) are also taken as “xing”, which reveals the totem worship of the people of the primitive society. “shi” was adopted some time later. As the population grew, more and more people shared the same “xing” and one matrilineal clan was prone to be subdivided into several branches which lived apart from one another. This resulted in the use of “shi” which served to make distinctions between the different branches. “shi” had various origins, which stemmed mainly from: reign titles or place names of fiefs, e.g. Zhou, Xia; peerage or posthumous titles of the ancestors, e.g. Wang, Hou, Wu; occupations, e.g. Tu(butcher), Tao(potter); names of places where people used to live, e.g. Dongguo, Ximen and so on.