When I am alive, my last name is Liao (廖). When I am dead, my last name becomes Chang (張).

The complete history is obviously much too long to recount, but the short version is this: The Liao family had only one female heir left, and to pass on the thread of life, they found a guy whose last name is Chang, and stipulated that the first child (male, obviously) will have the last name Liao and the rest will have the last name Chang. Unfortunately, the couple only had one child, hence the compromise. On the web, the best resource that I have seen is in the Chinese wikipedia entry 張廖家族. I also corrected some misinformation (and put in the correct ones), in the English wikipedia entry Chinese surname.

Following in Kai von Fintel’s footsteps, here is a guideline on how to cite me. I realize this is obviously ridiculous because I am unpublished and alive, but I thought I’d just throw it out there, in case one of those two things change. When I am alive, I’d like to be cited as

Liao, Shen-yi (20xx). “Blah blah blah,” Journal YY:zz-zz.

but after I die, I’d like to be cited as

Chang, Shen-yi (20xx). “Blah blah blah,” Journal YY:zz-zz. Originally published under the name ‘Shen-yi Liao’.

Thanks.

P.S. For completeness, here is some other important information about my lineage:
堂號: 張廖家廟 承祜堂
主祀: 六世天與公
座落: 西安街205巷

P.P.S. Note that the ‘y’ in ‘Shen-yi’ is not capitalized. That’s just the way it is.