How long are Chinese names?

Answer 1

Chinese names usually have two or three characters, like 孔子 (Confucius) or 毛澤東 (Mao Zedong). When a woman marries a man though, the woman takes the surname of the man and adds her own whole name after that, for example 葉劉淑儀 (Regina Ip).

Some surnames take up two, three and even four characters. These surnames are called compound surnames. Some compound surnames are 司馬 and 歐陽. A long Chinese compound surname is 愛新覺羅, notable for the emperors in the Qin dynasty. So to answer your question, Chinese surnames are usually two or three characters long, but longer names can exist.