Why are a lot of MC's name in cultivator novels include one of the following: Jiang, Chen, Ming, Li, Yang. I know Chinese last names has less varieties than others but why these 4 tho? It's like Authors really like those 4 characters. Like there are tons of other last names out there: Han, Hao, Huang, Lee, Liu, Zhou, Zhang, Xie, etc.
What about Xu, Song , Yan, Su, Song Ye ? There is variety but it’s much less then Western novels . It probably feels less because some novels have the Same Name’s for Side characters especially females. Probably saw 2-3 with the same name . You know those cold beatys or rice User with the Name Xue Xxxx or smth. edit : Dont forget the 4 Big clans which are almost the same. Btw I like those names(because they have meanings, like pretty snow etc)
I just very rarely see MC being surnamed Wang, always a side character or throwaway character. I think I saw it once and even that's only a short story.
It probably seems that way just because while you can easily make up a nonsense word and call that a name in English novels, the Chinese names are not only written in pinyin (so in the raws they might be different characters) when translated, the tone markings are taken off too, so it's even harder to see the variety.
I think that this is mostly a matter of the books you're reading. If you read different ones then you'd be noticing different surnames so I don't think there's any special meaning here. And indeed, Chinese writers will sometimes use particular given names for thematic reasons, but it's a lot rarer for that to happen with surnames. Personally, I've read a lot of Chinese books and there is a large variety of surnames in them.
I think it's because there is only so many surenames that is poetic, and chinese regard a child names highly, like if there is "tian" then the parent wish that the boy will become someone to look up to like the sky, or if there is "xue" the n the parent wish the girl is as beautiful as snow.
That can't be it because while it might apply to given names, it doesn't really work for surnames. Parents don't change the surnames of their children so it's rare for them to derive any poetic meaning from it (although it does occasionally happen).
Total speculation here, but Jiang, Li, and Yang are the surnames of some pretty important characters in Fengshen Yangyi (or “The Investiture of the Gods”). The most popular / recognizable ones, anyway. Dunno about Chen or Ming, though.
It's very unlikely, even if there is any veracity to the claim that these surnames are disproportionately represented, that it has anything a particular book. Li, Chen, and Yang just super common surnames in China to begin with so there's nothing unusual about writers using them for their characters. There are three different fairly common surnames which are "Jiang" in pinyin so it's silly to lump them together. Ming really is a very uncommon surname, but I also don't think I've ever seen a character with this name so I suspect the OP is off the mark here.
English readers can only see Chinese names in pinyin, without tone marks, which makes it impossible to tell the difference between homophone words. That's why there might be a wider variety of surnames used than you thought. And there is also a reason like this: the author like so. I have seen someone gave many of her main characters the same surname cuz she likes it soooo, yeah.