PUT three Malaysians with the same Chinese surname, “陈”, in a room and you may end up with a Tan, a Chan and a Chin.

Same surname, three different spellings.

It is so common in Malaysia that most of us hardly give it a second thought. “张” can be Teoh, Cheong, Chong or Chang, while “黄” may be Ng, Wong or Ooi.

But have you ever wondered why? To find the answer, we have to go back a few generations, to a time when our ancestors left China and made their way south to Malaya.

They came from different places and spoke different dialects – Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka, Hainanese, Foochow and many others.

Although they might have shared the same Chinese surname, they did not necessarily pronounce it the same way.

When their names were written down in Roman letters, the spelling often followed the way the surname sounded in their own dialect. 

And those spellings stayed, passed down from parents to children over the generations.

That is how “林” became Lim in one family, Lam in another and Lum in yet another. “李” could be Lee or Li, while “吴” could appear as Goh, Ng or Oh. There are also Yaps and Yips who share the surname “叶”, and Leongs and Leungs who are both “梁”.

Malaysian Chinese ancestors came from different places in China and spoke different dialects.

Generations later, some young Malaysian Chinese may no longer speak the dialect their grandparents or great-grandparents once spoke.

Ask them why their surname is spelt that way, and they may not have an answer. “That’s just how my family spells it,” would probably be the simplest explanation.

And it gets even more interesting. Two Wongs may not even share the same Chinese surname – one could be “王” and the other “温”. Meanwhile, two people who share the Chinese surname “周” may spell it differently – one as Chow, the other as Chew.

So the next time you meet a Tan, Chan, Wong, Lim or Chew, take a second look at the surname. It may tell you a little about where the family came from and the dialect spoken by generations before them.

In Malaysia, sometimes a family story can be found in something as simple as a surname. — Sin Chew Daily/MIA

This article is part of the special series by the Media in Arms alliance to highlight the many faces of Malaysia’s society through different ethnic, linguistic and cultural perspectives in conjunction with Malaysia Day. 

Media in Arms comprises five mainstream media outlets – Chinese newspaper Sin Chew Daily, Malay daily Sinar Harian, local news broadcaster Astro Awani, Tamil newspaper Malaysia Nanban and The Star – which formed this initiative in February 2022 to share resources and collaborate on diversified news content.