Korean name
{{korean name|hangul=이름
also 성명|hanja=이름
also "名|rr=Ireum
also Seongmyeong|mr=Irŭm
also Sŏngmyŏng|
A
Korean personal name consists of a
family name and a
given name, both of which are generally composed of
hanja.
In
Korean, as with many other East Asian cultures, the given name follows the family name. When using
European languages, some Koreans keep the original order, while others reverse their names to match the
Western pattern.
 |
45% of Korean people bear the family name Kim, Lee, or Park |
There are roughly 250
family names in use today.
[U.S. Library of Congress, Traditional Family Life.] Each family name is divided into one or more clans (
bon-gwan), identified by the clan's city of origin. For example, the most populous clan is Gimhae Kim; that is, the Kim clan from the city of Gimhae. As with other East Asian cultures, Korean women traditionally keep their family name at marriage, but children take their father's name. According to tradition, each clan publishes a comprehensive genealogy (jokbo'') every 30 years.
[Nahm, pg. 33-34.] The table below lists the five most common family names, which together make up over half of the Korean population. Each name is held by more than 2 million people in South Korea alone.
[Based on data from the South Korean census of 2000. See List of Korean family names for complete discussion.]| Hangul | Hanja | Revised | MR | Popular spellings | | 김 | 金 | Gim | Kim | Kim |
리 (N)
이 (S) | 李 | Ri (N)
I (S) | Ri (N)
I (S) | Lee, Rhee, Yi |
| 박 | 朴 | Bak | Pak | Park, Pak |
| 정 | 鄭
丁 | Jeong | Chŏng | Chung, Chong, Jung |
| 최 | " | Choe | Ch'oe | Choi |
Korean family names were influenced by
Chinese family names, and almost all Korean family names consist of one
hanja, and hence are one
syllable). There are around a dozen two-syllable surnames, all of them rank after the 100 most common surnames. Most of these are uncommon
Chinese surnames as well.
Despite official
Korean romanization systems used for geographic and other names in North and South Korea, personal names are generally romanized according to personal preference.
Westernized pronunciations
In English speaking nations, the three most common family names are often written and pronounced as "Kim" (김), "Lee" or "Rhee" (리, 이), and "Park" (박). The initial sound in "Kim" shares features with both the English 'k' (in initial position, an aspirated voiceless velar stop) and "hard g" (an unaspirated voiced velar stop). When pronounced initially, Kim starts with an unaspirated voiceless velar stop sound; it is voiceless like , but also unaspirated like . As aspiration is a distinctive feature in Korean but voicing is not, "Gim" is more likely to be understood correctly.
The family name 李 (Lee) is pronounced as 리 (
ri) in North Korea and as 이 (
i) in South Korea. In the former case, the initial sound is an
alveolar flap, an allophone of the Korean alveolar liquid. There is no distinction between the alveolar liquids and , which is why "Lee" and "Rhee" are both common spellings. In South Korea, the pronunciation of the name is simply the English vowel sound for a "long e", as in
see. This pronunciation is often spelled as "Yi" or another similar variation.
In Korean pronunciation, the name usually romanized as "Park" actually has no 'r' sound at all. Its initial sound is an unaspirated voiceless bilabial stop, like a cross between English 'p' and 'b', and the the vowel is the
IPA sound [a], typically pronounced as the 'a' in father. The "ㅏ" sound is almost identical to the short 'a' vowel in northern
British English pronunciation.
|
The Korean name Hong Gildong (a common anonymous name, like John Doe in American English). The Hangul version is above, the Hanja below. The family name Hong is in yellow. |
Traditionally, given names for males are partly determined by
generation names, or
dollimja, a custom originating in China. One of the two characters in a given name is unique to the individual and the other is shared by all people in a family of the generation. Therefore, it is common for cousins to have the same character (dollimja) in their given names in the same fixed position.
In South Korea, section 37 of the Family Registry Law requires that the hanja in personal names be taken from a restricted list.
[호적법, 법률6438호 (Family Register Law, Act 6438), partially revised October 24 2005. Available online [1]] Unapproved hanja must be represented by hangul in the family registry. In March 1991, on the advice of the
Ministry of Culture, the the
Supreme Court of South Korea published the
Table of Hanja for Personal Name Use which allowed a total of 2,854 hanja in new South Korean given names (as well as 61 alternate forms).
The list was expanded in 1994, 1997, 2001, and 2005. Thus there are now 5,038 hanja permitted in South Korean names, in addition to a small number of alternate forms.
While the traditional practice is still largely followed, since the late 1970s, some parents have given their children names that are native
Korean words, usually of two syllables. This has been largely restricted to girl's names. Popular native Korean given names of this sort include Haneul (하늘; "Heaven" or "Sky") and Iseul (이슬; "Dew"). Despite this trend away from traditional practice, people's names are still recorded in both
Hangul and
Hanja (if available) on official documents, in family genealogies, and so on.
Korean given names are usually composed of two characters or syllables. Few people have one- or three-character given names, like the politicians
Kim Gu and
Goh Kun on the one hand, and
Yeon Gaesomun on the other. People with two-character family names often have a one-character given name, like the singer
Seomoon Tak.
Native names
Prior to the adoption of Chinese-style names, Koreans had indigenous names, which were transcribed in Hanja. Except for royalty, most Koreans did not have family names. Native given names were sometimes composed of three syllables like Misaheun (미사"; 未斯欣) and Sadaham (사다함; 斯多含). Under the influence of Chinese culture in the first millennium of the
Common Era, Koreans adopted family names. Family names were limited to kings and aristocrats at the beginning, but gradually spread to the commoners during the
Goryeo and
Joseon dynasty periods.
Goguryeo in Manchuria and northern Korea and
Baekje in southwestern Korea had many non-Chinese family names. They often consisted of two characters and many of them seem to have been toponyms. Judging from Japanese records, some characters were pronounced not by their Chinese reading but by their reading in the native language (see
Hanja#Hun and Eum). For example, Goguryeo General
Yeon Gaesomun (연개소문; 淵"蘇文) is called Iri Kasumi (伊梨柯須弥) in
Nihonshoki. Like
cheon (천; 泉) in Chinese,
iri would presumably have meant "fountain" in the Goguryeo language. In contrast,
Silla family names were in the Chinese style, perhaps related to King
Muyeol's Sinicization policy.
The ancient kings of Korea gave their subjects family names. For example, in AD 33, King
Yuri gave the tribes of Saro (Silla) names like Bae (배), Choe (최), Jeong (정), Son (손) and Seol (설). Other names given by kings are An (안),
Cha (차), Han (한), Hong (홍), Kim (김), Kwon (권), Nam (남), Eo (어), and Wang (왕).
Mongolian names
For a brief period after the
Mongol invasion of Korea during the
Goryeo Dynasty, Korean kings and aristocrats had both
Mongolian and
Sino-Korean names. For example, King
Gongmin had both the Mongolian name Bayan Temür (伯顏帖木') and the Sino-Korean name Wang Gi (王祺) (later renamed Wang Jeon 王").
Mongolian personal names did not include family names, so some Korean nobility had names that were combinations of Sino-Korean family names and Mongolian given names. For example, Gi Cheol (奇轍), a brother of the
Qi Empress, was called Gi Bayan Bukha (奇伯顏不花), and the Qi Empress' eunuch was called Bak Bukha (朴不花).
Japonification of names
During the
period of Japanese colonial rule of Korea (1910"1945), Koreans were compelled to adopt
Japanese-language names.
[U.S. Library of Congress, Korea Under Japanese Rule.] In 1939, as part of
Governor-General Jiro Minami's policy of cultural assimilation (同化"策;
dōka seisaku), Ordinance No. 20 (Commonly called the "Name Order") was issued, and went into law on
February 11,
1940, the 2,600th anniversary of the mythical
Emperor Jimmu's founding of Japan.
The ordinance — commonly called
Sōshi-kaimei (創氏"名) in
Japanese — in theory allowed (but in practice compelled) Koreans to adopt Japanese family and given names. Although the Japanese Government-General officially prohibited compulsion, low-level officials practically forced Koreans to get Japanese-style family names, and by 1944, approximately 84 percent of the population had registered Japanese family names.
[Nahm, p. 233]Sōshi (Japanese) means the creation of a Japanese family name or
si (Korean
ssi (")), distinct from a Korean family name or
seong (Japanese
sei). Japanese family names represent the families they belong to and can be changed by marriage and other procedures, while Korean family names represent paternal linkages and are unchangeable.
Sōshi represented a dual operation of both Japanese and Korean family name systems. Japanese policy dictated that Koreans either could register a completely new Japanese family name unrelated to their Korean surname, or have their Korean family name, in Japanese form, automatically become their Japanese name. Koreans were not, however, permitted to register a Korean family name other than their original name. For example, a person surnamed Bak (박; 朴) would be permitted to register Arai (新井), a Japanese name, or Boku (the Japanese equivalent of Bak), but did not have the choice of taking the name Kim (김; 金).
Japanese conventions of creating given names also made their way into Korea, such as putting a character "子" (Japanese
ko and Korean
ja meaning "descendant" or "son") to make feminine names like "玉子" (Japanese
Tamako and Korean
Okja), although this practice is seldom seen in modern Korea, either North or South. (
See External links for more on the Sōshi-kaimei
policy.)
After the liberation of Korea from Japanese rule, the Name Restoration Order (조선 성명 복구령; 朝鮮"名復舊令) was issued on
October 23,
1946 by the
United States military administration south of the
38th parallel north, enabling Koreans to restore their Korean names if they wished to.
*Nahm, Andrew C. (1988).
Korea: Tradition and Transformation — A History of the Korean People. Elizabeth, NJ: Hollym International. ISBN 0930878566
*U.S. Library of Congress.
Korea Under Japanese Rule &
Traditional Family Life Country Studies/Area Handbook Series. Retrieved on
10 August 2006.
*
Name*
Chinese name*
Japanese name*
Vietnamese name*
Courtesy name*
Era name*
Generation name*
Posthumous name*
Temple name*
List of Korea-related topics*
List of most common surnames*
List of Korean family names*
Table of Hanja for Personal Name Use*
Examples of Koreans who used Japanese names (in Japanese): by
Saga Women's Junior College*
Public Figures in Popular Culture: Identity Problems of Minority Heroes — Footnote 16 gives bibliographic references for Korean perspectives on the
Soshi-Kaimei policy.
