I'm looking to find God again (V)

Returning from the north coast last weekend I was passed by a bus, whose driver’s family name is Xi (奚).

I don’t remember ever meeting someone with this name (though before you say it, let me admit that might just be my bad memory).

So back home I checked, and indeed it is not in the most common 100 family names, which account for around 85% of all Chinese people.

The five most common names—Li 李, Wang 王, and Zhang張, Liu, 劉 and Chen 陳—account for around 30%, and the next five—趙, 楊, 吳, 黃, and 周—for around another 10-15%. The next 10 family names—徐, 朱, 林, 孫, 馬, 高, 胡, 鄭, 郭, 蕭—together account for another 10+% of Chinese people.

Regional differences occur because of selective migration, however. This is especially true in Taiwan, which not only is an island but was also cut off from China for long periods, including 110 of the last 114 years.

The ten most common family names in Taiwan are Chen 陳 (11.06%) , Lin 林 (8.28%), Huang 黃 (6.01%), Zhang 張 (5.26%), Li 李 (5.11%), Wang 王 (4.12%), Wu 吳 (4.04%), Liu 劉 (3.17%), Cai 蔡 (2.91%), and Yang 楊 (2.66%) .

Less than 0.1% of Chinese have the family name 奚, therefore, (and less than 0.01% if it is not in the 101st-200th range),

In fact, 奚 is a pretty rare character altogether.
Looking in my Chinese-English dictionary (under the 大 radical not 爫), there are just three entries. In Classical Chinese it meant “why/what/where”, and its only common current usage is in xiluo (奚落) “to taunt”.

Two explanations exist for its use as a family name: i) that it is an offshoot from the 任 (Ren) clan, or ii) that it derives from the BoXi (薄奚) non-Han ethnic group, which subsequently dropped the “Bo” part of its name.

My twenty-volume encyclopedia has no entry under 奚, suggesting there are no well-known writers, artists, politicians or historical figures with this family name.
Wikipedia did better, with almost a dozen.

Probably the most famous person with this name was one of Confucius’ 72 “virtuous men” (賢intellectual/talented?), the preeminent of his 3,000 disciples, Xi Rong-dian (奚容蒧), who is said to have come from the state of Wei 衛國 (in today’s …)

Among contemporary Taiwanese, perhaps television personality Hsi Sheng-lin (奚聖林) is best known, particularly for his sports reporting.

And now Hsi Chia-hung (奚嘉鴻) joins them for his efforts on the north coast bus routes.