The predominance of Korean surnames Kim and Lee reveals the consequences of letting people pick and choose their own family names. Nearly half of South Koreans today is either a Kim, Lee or Park. In China, there are about 100 surnames in common usage, whereas Japan has as many as 280,000 distinct family names. The Economist explains the history behind why is there so little diversity in Korean surnames.
Female hockey players Lee, Kim, Lee, Fanny (!) and Kim. Pic Reuters
This blog loves names and discovering the reasons behind common and not-so-common names. For first names, when people are allowed to pick and choose their creativity (or lack thereof) they can reveal a lot about their background, culture, education, social values and way of thinking.
A SOUTH KOREAN saying claims that a stone thrown from the top of
Mount Namsan, in the centre of the capital Seoul, is bound to hit a
person with the surname Kim or Lee. One in every five South Koreans is a
Kim—in a population of just over 50m. And from the current president,
Park Geun-hye, to rapper PSY (born Park Jae-sang), almost one in ten is a
Park. Taken together, these three surnames account for almost half of
those in use in South Korea today. Neighbouring China has around 100
surnames in common usage; Japan may have as many as 280,000 distinct
family names. Why is there so little diversity in Korean surnames?
Korea’s
long feudal tradition offers part of the answer. As in many other parts
of the world, surnames were a rarity until the late Joseon dynasty
(1392-1910). They remained the privilege of royals and a few aristocrats
(yangban) only. Slaves and outcasts such as butchers, shamans and
prostitutes, but also artisans, traders and monks, did not have the
luxury of a family name. As the local gentry grew in importance,
however, Wang Geon, the founding king of the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392),
tried to mollify it by granting surnames as a way to distinguish
faithful subjects and government officials. The gwageo, a civil-service
examination that became an avenue for social advancement and royal
preferment, required all those who sat it to register a surname. Thus
elite households adopted one. It became increasingly common for
successful merchants too to take on a last name. They could purchase an
elite genealogy by physically buying a genealogical book (jokbo)—perhaps
that of a bankrupt yangban—and using his surname. By the late 18th
century, forgery of such records was rampant. Many families fiddled with
theirs: when, for example, a bloodline came to an end, a non-relative
could be written into a genealogical book in return for payment. The
stranger, in turn, acquired a noble surname.
As family names such
as Lee and Kim were among those used by royalty in ancient Korea, they
were preferred by provincial elites and, later, commoners when plumping
for a last name. This small pool of names originated from China, adopted
by the Korean court and its nobility in the 7th century in emulation of
noble-sounding Chinese surnames. (Many Korean surnames are formed from a
single Chinese character.) So, to distinguish one’s lineage from those
of others with the same surname, the place of origin of a given clan
(bongwan) was often tagged onto the name. Kims have around 300 distinct
regional origins, such as the Gyeongju Kim and Gimhae Kim clans (though
the origin often goes unidentified except on official documents). The
limited pot of names meant that no one was quite sure who was a blood
relation; so, in the late Joseon period, the king enforced a ban on
marriages between people with identical bongwan (a restriction that was
only lifted in 1997). In 1894 the abolition of Korea’s class-based
system allowed commoners to adopt a surname too: those on lower social
rungs often adopted the name of their master or landlord, or simply took
one in common usage. In 1909 a new census-registration law was passed,
requiring all Koreans to register a surname.
Today clan origins,
once deemed an important marker of a person’s heritage and status, no
longer bear the same relevance to Koreans. Yet the number of new Park,
Kim and Lee clans is in fact growing: more foreign nationals, including
Chinese, Vietnamese and Filipinos, are becoming naturalised Korean
citizens, and their most popular picks for a local surname are Kim, Lee,
Park and Choi, according to government figures; registering, for
example, the Mongol Kim clan, or the Taeguk (of Thailand) Park clan. The
popularity of these three names looks set to continue.
Perhaps Thomas Jefferson said it best with: “Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error“. Much error exists in the world and this blog, from the perspective of one Hong Kong SAR resident, is a small attempt to minimize errors.
(this site was formerly HKSAR Blog)
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