Sino-Mauritian or Chinese Mauritian are overseas Chinese who reside in Mauritius. Even though they have influenced Mauritian culture greatly (especially gastronomically: Chinese food is consumed all over the island by all people), they make up only 3% of the population on the island. Most are descendants of Chinese of Hakka descent who arrived between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. The majority of them used their original language Hak-ka-fa/-va ???, (or Hak-fa/-va ??) although a smaller number spoke Cantonese.
They are mostly descendants of immigrants to Mauritius from Guangdong province (Meixian, mostly) and have transited through Hong Kong. The British authorities in Hong Kong made documents for these travelers based on what the latter tell them: name, age, place of birth, etc. Before this, the emigrants had little or obviously, no papers were used for all official purposes including declaring newborns.
Using the full Chinese name of the male head of family or a respected ancestor who led the family to denote the family name is a result of an administrative procedure that had been widely used in British India (e.g. Muthu s/o Lingham). The practice was standardized to include Chinese Mauritian into the system had resulted to unique naming of the Chinese not found outside of Mauritius and neighbouring Reunion.