Yuan Yida

In thisChinese name,thefamily nameisYuan.

Yuan Yida
Born	1947 (age 76–77) Shanghai,Republic of China
Nationality	Chinese
Alma mater	Peking University
Scientific career
Fields	Biology
Institutions	Stanford University Chinese Academy of Sciences

Yuan Yida(simplified Chinese:Viên nghĩa đạt;traditional Chinese:Viên nghĩa đạt;pinyin:Yuán Yìdá) is aresearcherfrom the Institute of Genetic and Developmental Biology at theChinese Academy of Sciences.He is a leading researcheronChinese surnamesinmainland China,and has been working onstatisticalstudies of surname distribution in thePeople's Republic of Chinaover the past two decades. He led the research on an updated, 2006 version of theHundred Family Surnames,a text of popular surnames originally published in theSong Dynasty,encompassing 4100 surnames from 296 million individuals in 1110 counties.

Yuan Yida was born in 1947 inShanghai,tracing his ancestry toFenghua,Zhejiang.He spent much of his youth inNingbo,before moving toBeijingand attendingBeijing University.Between 1988 and 1992 he conducted research atStanford University.In mainland China he has published more than 30 articles and two monographs.

In 1987, he estimated there were between 12,000 to 13,000 surnames in China.

He demonstrated that two individuals with the same surname in China could have received that surname from one of several different surnames in an earlier era, casting doubt over the notion that those who share the same surname today would be considered "belonging to the same family five hundred years ago".

He has remarked thatfortune-tellingbased on surnames exists in China, labeling it "nonsense". He claimed that research on surnames may invoke patriotic feelings inoverseas Chineseby drawing them closer to other Chinese with the same surname.