As a cultural symbol in the process of China's modernization, "individual" can be called the "keyword" in the transitional era. "Small self"(Xiaoji小己), a new term Yan Fu used to express the concept of the individual in the modern West, is first found in his translation of The Study of Sociology(Qunxue yiyan《群学肄言》) and is derived from Sima Qian's the Records of the Historian(Shiji《史记》). Yan Fu's translation strategy is to "use Confucianism to explain the West", and the birth of the "small self"(Xiaoji 小己) reflects his typical "group-self view" with the characteristic of "combining the East and the West", in which he paints a layer of Confucian ethics for the Western neutral concept of "individual", and interprets Spencer's sociological thought into a kind of "group-self view" that endorses Confucian value, and pursues a balance between Group and Self. In the context of modern localization, Yan Fu translated "individual" with traditional vocabulary represented by"small self"(Xiaoji 小己), trying to reconcile the contradiction between the Western concept of individualism and Confucian political ethics and helping Western concepts to complete the transformation in the Chinese context. He has made remarkable contributions to the construction of modern Chinese academic discourse and the mutual appreciation between Chinese and Western civilizations. Under the impact of foreign words, "small self"(Xiaoji 小己) still has a "market", and there are many cases in modern newspapers and periodicals that use "small self"(Xiaoji 小己) to express the concept of "individual". It is also included in the early modern Anglo-Chinese dictionaries. This shows the spread of "small self"(Xiaoji 小己) in modern times, and its cultural influence can be proved from the perspective of historical acceptance. The names used to translate "individual" in the late Qing Dynasty presented a complex scene from the very beginning, such as "person"(人), "human"(人人), "individual"(个人), "private"(私), "self (己), "small self"(小己) and "Yaoni"(么匿), which naturally competed and coexisted for quite a long period. When reviewing the historical trajectory of "individual" in the translation of English, and examining the development and evolution of "individual" discourse in modern Chinese ideological history, we should fully recognize that the translation of "small self"(Xiaoji 小己) is of great merit and has an irreplaceable cultural value. In this way, we can further consider the local translation of the Western concept of "individual" in the context of modern China, as well as the construction of Chinese personal discourse and the emergence of the modern concept of the individual in China.