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What's In a Korean Name? By Choi Soon Yong / All rights reserved. The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names. - Chinese proverb. What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. - William Shakespeare. A name is meant to convey certain information about the person who carries it or about the thing it is attached to. A name must be distinctive as well as descriptive. But human names are seldom descriptive. If a name is descriptive, it usually is a nickname. If a name is only distinctive, but not descriptive, Shakespeare was right with 'a rose by any other name...' However, names are descriptive, maybe not about personality and physique, but about origin, and family relations. Some early human names also described physical characteristics as well. A typical Roman name consisted of three parts: praenomen, nomen, and cognomen. Praenomen was the given name or first name. Nomen indicated the gens, or the family origin. Cognomen is equivalent to the last name. For example, take the most famous name of Julius Caesar. His full name was Gaius Julius Caesar, Gaius being the given name. Julius, or the gens Julia, indicates his family's origin. There were many branches of the family Julius (gens Julia) as with all other families such as Aurelius, Cornelius, Fabius, and Servilius. Each branch is distinguished by cognomen. Thus Gaius Julius Caesar belonged to Caesar branch of Julius family. Interestingly enough, these branch names are descriptive. From the list by Colleen McCollough's "The First Man in Rome," Caesar means "a fine head of hair." Some other examples are: Flaccus (big ears), Strabo (cross-eyed), Silanus (ugly puggy face), Nerva (tough), Caepio (the onion vendor), Lentulus (slow). Some of these describe physical features, others personalities. Some cognomens were acquired by conquering foreign lands: Africanus (of Africa), Numidicus (of Numidia). I will not go into the difference between patrician and plebeian names, and how naming has changed later. Naturally, descriptive aspects of cognomen no longer applied to later generations. In contrast to this elaborate family name structure, given names were limited to a small number of popular ones such as Gaius, Lucius, and Titus. Thus, nomen and cognomen were the names that were distinctive. Much as today, given names distinguished persons only among familial or friendly circles. European family names were also descriptive: Carpenters, Miller, etc., although they also have lost their descriptive aspect. However, given sufficient variety of these names, they are sufficient to be 'distinctive.' This is not the case for Korean names. If you throw a stone from the top of a building in Seoul (not that I recommend the practice), the chances are you will hit either Mr. Kim, Mr. Lee, or Mr. Park bustling on the street below. There are too many Kims and Lees among Koreans. If you are thinking that Korean first names, therefore, must be the distinctive element in names, then you are on the right track. What's more is that Korean first names (usually with two syllables) convey some familial relationship. The branch relation (as in cognomen) is still there, albeit in a very subtle way, which still has social and legal ramifications. Are Koreans with the same last name all related? Yes and no, as my reply to Chuck Shepard (editor of News of the Weird) will explain. What can you decipher about a Korean by way of his/her name? How would you show your wisdom by using a proper name? A rose with any other name might smell as sweet, but a wrong name gets you a wrong person. |
1. Last Name First, Please!In a recent Austin Chronicle article about a certain Korean company's new plant in Austin, one writer discussed about its chairman Lee Kun Hee. The writer referred him as Mr. Hee. If you pick one of these three, what would you say his last name is? Of course, it's Lee, not Hee. The confusion stems from the practice, in Korean press, of writing Korean names as we do in Korea. Most official press releases (in English) and news accounts follow this practice. The president, Mr. Kim, is identified as 'Kim Young Sam' not as 'Young Sam Kim.' We use last (family) name first and given names second. And there is a logical explanation to it. Koreans, as well as Chinese and Japanese, identify things going from general to specific aspects. Postal addresses are one example. While Western convention is to name the recipient's name, street address, city and state, we start by state and city, street address and finally the name. We can philosophize this by saying that people put important things first. Thus, Westerners are individualistic, while Far Easterners are group oriented. (But that might be seeing a mountain out of molehill.) Similarly, dates are given by year, month, day and time in that order as names are written first with family name and then given name. It seems that deduction is our favorite pass time. (The issue regarding anglicizing Korean names will be discussed below.) 2. What's in a Korean Family Name?As family names are shared by blood relations, it would be helpful to know how closely the Kims and the Lees are related. A short answer is that there is no practical blood-relationship among Koreans with the same family name. However, Korean common law says otherwise. Some people with the same last name cannot legally marry. It's not clear how we named ourselves if we go back two thousand years. But it's certain that Korean names were much different from Chinese names. In early historical records, there is no indication of family names other than a few who adopted Chinese or Chinese-based surnames such as Kim or Park. There might have been difficulty in translating Korean names into Chinese which was used for writing. (Korean writing system was developed in the 15th century.) In any case, Chinese-based names became the norm among upper and middle classes during the Go-Ryu dynasty. When a new name was created, the family was given some land by a king and the city where the land was located became known as 'bon' or origin. With 'bon' distinguishing two Kims, there wasn't any compelling reason to adopt a brand new name, unless your family had migrated from China with a name. Also, when people with only given names (lower class, and domestic slaves) were allowed to use (or to buy) family names, they preferred to use one out of existing names instead of creating new and thereby recognizable names for their own benefit. (Some simply pretended to belong to one of existing family branches with or without consent.) Therefore, the origin or 'bon' indicates a certain blood relationship. And there are (on average, but don't take my word for it) about 4 or 5 unrelated branches in each of these family names. The Kims of Seoul or the Kims of Chunju share the same ancestry, but not between the two branches of Kims. (Some bons are related.) It is in this sense that a couple cannot marry if they have same last names of the same origin. There are only about 400 or so Korean family names. With over 70 million Koreans worldwide, it's not an accident that I haven't found a marriageable partner yet. ;-) At least, this gives such an impression. The following is a copy of my email to Chuck Shepard of News of the Weird. Dear Chuck, Under 'Seeds of Our Destruction' you have: South Korea's Supreme Court ruled in September that men and women who have the same last name can henceforth marry each other provided they marry first outside the country. The ban on same-name marriages had severely limited marital choice; for example, 43 percent of the population are named either Kim, Lee, or Park. (end of quote) I haven't read the report, but I know what they are referring to. My first love, more than 15 years ago, was one of those that I couldn't marry legally. But, a Kim could marry a Kim under the old law. What the new ruling means is that a Kim can now marry another Kim even when they both belong to the same clan. (Clan in Korean is called 'Bon.') Each Korean family name has several clans, I'd say about five each, designated by an ancestral town, and recorded as such in birth certificate (i.e. the clan of the father). Marriage among the same clan was illegal before the new ruling, but different clans are basically unrelated, same last name or not. So, even though over half of Koreans have Kim, Lee, Park, Choi, or Chung as their last name, as far as marriage is concerned, what matters is which clan you belong to. (For historical reasons, a clan has a very weak blood tie. But the Confucians will claim otherwise.) With 300 or so last names, and numerous, unrelated, clans for each last name, the chances are one in a thousand that you'll meet someone with the same last name AND the same clan as you do. Half that chance for being of opposite sex, and a third of that for being marriageable age. Further discount the chance that the other person is already married. End result is that it is pretty rare to meet one and madly fall in love with someone of the same last name and clan. Your impression that the old law had severely limited marital choice is misplaced. Of course, the choice was limited due to the law, albeit to a minor degree. And I can attest my experience to that effect. But what's interesting is that the old law represented the power of Confucian ethics in Korean society. A marriage among clan members was considered to be an act of incest, although they might be cousins 20 times removed. I'm appalled at child abuse and incest in American society. To a Korean, sexual relationship between persons however remotely related by blood or by marriage is unthinkable, and condemned as such. Then, why the new ruling? The fact is that, given a clan, over half of its members are not related by blood at all. The clans date back several hundred years, some thousand years. But until the 18th century, only about half of Koreans had last name and belonged to a clan (the upper class). Names were sold and made up as people acquired last names during the last two hundred years. Now everybody belongs to a clan, which brings up the question whether a clan is really a blood clan. Moreover, if you are concerned with incest, you should consider your mother's side. But names and clans follow only the male blood line, which brings up the criticism of being male chauvinistic. However, the ruling does not change a thing in reality. Attempts to revise the marital law has been going on for several decades now. The ruling simply says, without changing the law, that if a couple got married in the U.S., for example, they will recognize their marriage in Korea, thereby legitimizing their children and such matters. Until now, a couple of same clan had to apply for marriage license, and if the government official didn't object the filing (often with bribes), they could marry, although technically under a void marriage. However, if the couple produces an offspring before the mistake is (supposedly) discovered, the marriage becomes fully legal. But this practice has been rare as far as I know. Now all they have to do is to come to the U.S. and marry, but it might cost a lot more to do so than bribing. And bribing doesn't work that well in Korea. Sincerely, Soon Y. Choi Chuck replies: Dear Soon Y. Choi, Thanks for the lesson. It appears that I got the story wrong, but, of course, the main culprit was the original story I read, in, of all places, the Newspaper of Record, The New York Times. I reread its story, and I am absolutely certain that no implication of clans appeared in its story in any way. Chuck Shepherd One last note about spelling and pronunciation of Korean family names. The way we anglicize our names are haphazard. Lee is spelled alternatively as Rhee, Yi, or even as Li; Lim as Rim, Yim, Rheem; Choi as Choe or Chweh (which is the one I am thinking about using); Yoo as You, Yu, Ryu, or Ryoo. The reason why Lee and Yi are the same thing has to do with some phonetic law in Korean language which is beyond the scope of this dialogue. The point is that all these variations do not make an iota of difference as far as which family names they belong to. The variation does not exist in Korea. Users of these variations will claim that theirs is correct way to write in English in terms of pronunciation. Some just pick one and stick to it. You can find more uniformity among Chinese and Japanese names. Who says Koreans are more conforming to group practice than Chinese or Japanese? 3. What's in Korean Given Names?It's fine and dandy whichever way we write our family names, if it stops there. But there is much more confusion in anglicized given names. A guy's name may be written as any of these combinations: Kim Young Sam, Kim Youngsam, Young-sam Kim, Young-Sam Kim, Youngsam Kim, Y-S. Kim, and Young S. Kim. It's darn confusing. Besides the matter of the last-name-first convention, an important reason behind these variations is that most Koreans have two given names (syllables) which poses some dilemma when one tries to use one of these two as conventional middle name or middle initial. Each syllable in a name has a literal meaning representing a particular Chinese character. In practice, however, these characters lose meaning when used in a name, notwithstanding onomasticians' claim. What's important is not the literal meaning of names, but how and why they are chosen. Invariably, one of these two given names is a true given name, while the other is a generational name. To summarize, a typical (traditional) Korean name consists of a family name, a generational name, and a given name. Again, we see some deductive reasoning here. The family name is shared by blood relations both close and distant, past and present (going back hundreds of years). The generational names are shared by one generation: brothers, sisters and cousins. The given name is unique to each person. For example, 'Soon' in my name is the generational name. All my brothers and cousins have 'Soon' as one of their names. 'Yong' on the other hand is my given name. My brothers and cousins have following given names in addition to 'Soon': Jung, Hyun, Gui, Ok, and Yul. Given names are chosen according to parents or grandparents' wishes. But the generational names are already chosen and laid out for future generations. Its usage is not required legally, but each family's genealogical association keeps the tradition. (I'm afraid that this tradition is increasingly ignored.) Any name entered into their records will use these prescribed names. Therefore, it's common to find your name in your family's genealogical table spelled differently from your legal name. (Nevertheless, most families use generational names common to all offsprings, whether they are prescribed ones or not.) Since there will be a lot of generations to come, it will not be wise to pick just any names. Also, there might be some favorite names a family would like to use, which also gives a certain similarity and bonding among future and past family members. The minimum set of generational names consists of five names. For my family, they are: Hien, Soon, Siek, Yong, Guy. In addition, each generation alternates the position of generational name such that it takes 10 generations to come up with a generation-confusing names. Using my family's name structure, an example of 10 generational naming might look like this using only one given name of Jin and prescribed set of generational names:
1: Choi Hien Jin By the eleventh generation, the name repeats. But among 10 generations, one can tell what the generational relationships are among these ten individuals. If I meet one of my remote relatives, and he says his generational name is Yong on the first position, the chances are I'm his granduncle. Well, it's all theory. The person might be 12 generations after me or 8 generations before me. And that's possible if you are 37th generation of your family given marriage patterns. Speaking of theory, the five generational names are chosen according to Taoist theory of life. According to this old theory, the world consists of five elements (metal, water, wood, fire, earth) that give life to each other. Metal (or iron) becomes water when melted. Water feeds into wood (tree). Wood burns giving all to earth (soil). And when earth hardens, it becomes metal, thereby completing the cycle of life. What better principle is there to name generations of family members? It happens that each Chinese letter has an element (a portion of its picture). For example, Chinese letters for river, pond, creek, ocean, etc., all have 'water element' in them, logically enough. But also words that were derived from water such as pure, irrigate, filthy, saliva, swirl, bathe, etc., have water element. Thus, using my family example, 'Hien' is of metal element, 'Soon' is of water, 'Siek' is of wood, and so on. In particular 'Soon' means pure. Since a generational name is not a middle name in American sense, and not exactly a given name either, Koreans are not sure how to anglicize their names. One who writes 'Youngsam' ignores the difference between 'Young' and 'Sam.' 'Young-sam' adds a slight distinction between two names by using a hyphen. By writing 'Young-Sam' one likes to emphasize the fact that they are of equal value and that both are first names. 'Young Sam' is the least compromised system when followed by last name, but prone to be interpreted as first and middle names. Some just use 'Young S.' to be practical, since Americans are familiar with this system. A nationalistic usage will be the last name followed by 'Young Sam' as in press releases. As in the case of Lee Kun Hee mentioned above, this person becomes Mr. Hee, and his middle name is Kun. 4. Women's NamesTo any system run by humans, there are exceptions. As traditions are shunned away, the above looks too elaborate and sometimes restrictive. Furthermore, a new trend in naming is to use purely Korean words (similar to Celtic names vs. Latin names). Thus, traditional names are of lesser importance in the 1990s. Still, I'd guess two-third of Koreans follow some of these traditions. In case of female names, tradition does not dictate clearly. Most families still use generational names, but there is no prescribed set of names. Since each Chinese character has some flavor or being strong or gentle, female generational names are usually different from male counterpart within a family. The stuffy guys at family genealogical associations who maintain family tree logs can't care less. When a woman is married, their husband's name is entered into the log. the woman's name is not. What a shame! But that's the legacy of Confucians. But before you pass too harsh a judgment, consider a bright side of otherwise stuffy Confucianism. A person's last name cannot be changed, i.e. the familial tie cannot be broken or denied. Even when a woman marries, she does not change her last name, contrary to Western practice. Increasingly, American and English women use hyphenated last names, annoying the heck out of Mrs. Bucket of 'Keeping Up Appearances.' An alternative is not to change her last name, which Koreans have done so in the first place. Only surprise is that you find a certain Mrs. Kim is married to Mr. Choi, since we refer to a married woman by her own last name, not by the husband's. A married Korean women in the U.S. thus has a dilemma: to change or not to change her last name according to American tradition. Among temporary residents (students), one practice is to use both her and her husband's last names. For example, a women named Hyun Sil Kim is married to a guy named Chul Soo Lee. She might be using the name Hyun Sil Kim Lee or Hyun Kim Lee, which annoys the heck out of me. I have seen some hyphernated last names also. 5. Relational Names: Teknonymy to the ExtremeIt is well-known how important children are in Korean family. More than half of married couples will tell you that the only reason they are still married is for the sake of their children. Less well-known fact is that their names don't exist unless they produce a child. Once married, the husband is referred to as 'groom' and the wife as 'bride' until they have a child. Say they named the kid as 'Chul Soo.' The groom is now referred to as 'Chul Soo's father' and the bride as 'Chul Soo's mother' even between themselves.
Personally, I have three names, although Soon Yong is the legal name. Beside the name logged in the family tree book, which is Soon Kyung, most of my childhood was spent with a different name at home and at school. Many kids have nicknames used at home, but they know what their legal names are. I had no idea until the sixth grade. This is usually not possible because the official letter of school enrollment states the kid's legal name. When I was ready, in my parents' opinion, to attend elementary school, my parents enrolled me under a nickname of Man Soon without official notice of enrollment. I was under the legal age for school (I was five and half years old, too early for first grade), but in my home village teachers were glad that any parents were sending their kids to school (most didn't). I was enrolled under the pseudonym. My graduation certificate for elementary school still says my name is not Soon Yong. I first learned my legal name when I was in sixth grade. Even now, I feel my name belongs to someone else. I've lost my name in the process of acquaintanceship. Not all that bad, though. I think I took up a new personality with the new name. Whether good or bad, I can't say. |
Somehow Koreans avoid using proper names. I seldom use the names of most
of my uncles and aunts. I might recall grandparents' names, but I can't be
sure. Instead, Koreans have developed an elaborate system of relational
names. 'Nuna' is an older sister used by a younger brother. 'Oppa' is an
older brother used by a younger sister. 'Hyung' is an older brother used
by a younger brother. 'Unni' is an older sister used by a younger sister.
Four kinds of uncles (father's brother, mother's brother, father's sister's
husband, mother's sister's husband) and aunts (father's sister, mother's
sister, father's brother's wife, mother's brother's wife) all have
different names. The list goes on endlessly. With this elaborate relational
names, proper given names of relatives are not used often.