Though the official language of the Republic of Singapore is British English (and attempts to discourage Singlish), the great majority of its people are ethnic Han Chinese. Since their family names are often transliterated from Hakka, Cantonese, and other dialects, they appear distinctly different from the names in China proper.
As in Hong Kong, many people have a bilingual name, in which the family name is found in the middle, e.g.:
Jessica TAN Soon Neo (陈舜娘, Chen Shunniang; Member of the Singapore Parliament, former IBM Singapore executive)
whereas Tan is the family name.
According to the Statistics Singapore (2000), here are the five most common family names of Chinese-language origin:
- TAN 陈
- LIM 林
- LEE 李
- NG 吴、黄、伍 (combined figures)
- ONG 王、汪 (ditto)
In standard Beijing Mandarin they are Chen, Lin, Li, Wu, Huang, Wu, Wang and Wang, respectively. Worldwide, Chen 陈 and Li 李 are among the most common family names of all ethnic backgrounds.
* Note how this list of elected officials in Singapore gives sinified names to everyone, including those of Malay (note the Islamic names such as Muhammad and Abdullah) and Tamil heritage. For example, Inderjit Singh is 殷吉星 (Yin Jixing), which is a very auspicious name, as 吉星 Jixing literally means “lucky star.”
