Simplified Chinese Problem
The traditional surname 蕭 is currently represented by three different characters derived from traditional Chinese (蕭), simplified Chinese (萧), and the rescinded second-round simplification (肖). Hong Kong, Malaysia and Taiwan maintain traditional Chinese characters and therefore write 蕭. In mainland China and Singapore which use simplified Chinese, most linguistics agree the surname should be written as 萧. However, many people in mainland China still have 肖 as their surname in their legal documents for historical reasons (see below). In mainland China, people may regard them as two separate surnames. However, in circumstances where traditional Chinese is used, e.g. in cross-strait relations, this may lead to confusion.
People have long been writing the surname 肖 for simplicity, but the form was considered informal and not used in formal texts. However, the second-round Chinese simplification established 肖 as the standard form. When the second-round simplification was rescinded in 1984, some people restored their surname in legal documents to the traditional writing form, but some others did not.
Most other surnames do not share these problems. For example, Liao (廖) was simplified to a character with 广 and 了 combined in the second-round simplification. All Liao people reverted to using 廖 after the rescission, because the modification is no longer considered a valid character and cannot be typed into the computer. However, 肖, which has other meanings, is still valid so some people have continued to use this form even in legal documents.
Read more about this topic: Xiao (surname)
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