Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Hundreds or thousands of Chinese family names have been historically used by Han Chinese and Sinicized Chinese ethnic groups in mainland China, Taiwan, and among overseas Chinese communities. In ancient times two types of surnames, family names (Chinese: ; pinyin: xìng) and clan names ( ; pinyin: shì), existed. The colloquial expressions laobaixing, and b ixìng are used in Chinese to mean "ordinary folks", "the people", or "commoners." B iji xìng is also used to call the list of one hundred most common surnames. Chinese family names are patrilineal, passed from father to children. (In cases of adoption, the adoptee usually also takes the same surname.)