"Zhao Qian Sun Li, Zhou Wu Zheng Wang; Feng Chen Chu Wei, Jiang Shen Han Yang"- most Chinese would be familiar with such 4-word cramboes. Even an illiterate person would probably have heard of the Bai Jia Xing.

The surname is the most important part of one's own personal symbol and is the hallmark of a clan. It is closely related to social life, history and traditions.

The well-known Bai Jia Xing is an excellent reading material of profound influence. It has a history of a thousand years and has been widely circulated in China since the start of the Northern Song Dynasty in the10th century.

So who created the reputable Bai Jia Xing? When did the book first come into being and where was it published? To this day, all these remain a mystery. According to the results of the textual research done by academics since the Ming and the Qing Dynasties, there was probably a master copy of the Bai Jia Xing even before the Song Dynasty. An unknown Confucian scholar of Wuyue district (somewhere in present day Hangzhou of Zhejiang province) edited and compiled it during the early years of the Song Dynasty.

The earliest mention of the Bai Jia Xing was in a poem by Lu You, a patriotic poet of the Southern Song Dynasty (A.D. 1125-1210). The poem was entitled Qiu Ri Xiao Ju. In a note at the end of it, the poet mentioned that his inspiration came from two books, namely Za Zi and Bai Jia Xing. From this, it is apparent that the Bai Jia Xing was already popularized during the early Song Dynasty.

The emperors of the Song Dynasty bore the surname Zhao. The king of the Wuyue Kingdom had the surname Qian during the era of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. During the Song Dynasty, a scholar believed that Sun was the surname of imperial concubines. Li was the surname of the ruler, Li Houzhu, of the Nantang period. All these account for the order of the opening line of the Bai Jia Xing, "Zhao Qian Sun Li".

Presently, the earliest available print version of the Bai Jia Xing was published in the Yuan Dynasty (early 14th century). The Bai Jia Xing was compiled by matching the phonetic notations of Han characters and Mongolian characters. However, the Yuan Dynasty edition was incomplete. The Bai Jia Xing that was circulated was not finalized until the Ming Dynasty. It recorded 438 surnames, of which 408 were single-character surnames that were grouped into 102 lines. In addition, there were 30 two-character surnames that were compiled into 15 lines. The last line was Bai Jia Xing Zhong (meaning the end of the Bai Jia Xing) and there were 118 lines following it, comprising 472 words.

Sometime during the later part of the Qing Dynasty, there was another book entitled Zeng Guang Bai Jia Xing (meaning, expanding the Bai Jia Xing), which recorded 444 single-character surnames and 60 two-character surnames. It closed with the line "Bai Jia Xing Xu".

The edition of the Bai Jia Xing with Qing Dynasty lettering, that is presently available, contains both words and pictures. There is a picture of a famous historical personality at the top of every page along with the name and the clan of the person. At the bottom of the page, there is a verse made up of lines of four characters (or surnames), which sounds very much like one of those ancient four-line poems.

In the past, there were several revised versions of the Bai Jia Xing including Huang Zhouxing's (created during the last years of the Ming Dynasty), Yu Zhi Bai Jia Xing (which was written in the name of Emperor Kangxi during the Qing Dynasty), Bai Jia Xing San Bian by Ding Yan during the reign of Emperor Xianfeng (A.D. 1851-1861). These new versions of the Bai Jia Xing required a lot of effort in their layouts and each has its own distinctive features. However, they are still unable to replace the original version. This reflects the extent of the influence of the original.

The Bai Jia Xing not only circulated for generations in the Han Tribe. Translated copies of the Bai Jia Xing such as Meng Gu Zi Mu Bai Jia Xing and Nu Zhen Zi Mu Bai Jia Xing also surfaced in minority tribes who were on friendly terms with the Han Tribe. Such was the extent of the influence of the Bai Jia Xing.