All Chinese surnames
史
Shi
史 — Shǐ
The 83rd most common surname in China
About 2.85 million people in mainland China, 0.21% of the population, most numerous in Henan (Yuan Yida 袁义达 and Qiu Jiaru 邱家儒, 中国四百大姓, 2013).
May 27, 2026
The same name, spelled differently
A Chinese surname is a character, not a spelling. The Latin letters on a passport come from whichever dialect the name was written down from — so these are all 史.
- ShiMandarin — mainland China, Taiwan
- SzeCantonese — Hong Kong, and among Chinese communities in Malaysia and Singapore
- SiCantonese — Macau
- SerMin Nan — Malaysia and Singapore
- SooHakka — Singapore
- SửVietnamese
The character
Outside a name, 史 is an ordinary word meaning history.
- Strokes
- 5
- Radical
- 口
Words built from 史
The character does ordinary work in the language too. Each of these is a real word you can look up.
Other surnames read “Shi”
Romanised the same way, but a different character and a different family.