Korean Last Names Explained

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Korean last names. The first thing that comes to your mind: Kim. This is no surprise, as 21.6% (in 2000), according to the Korean Census, had the last name Kim. However, this is because of many ancestries in the Kim last name. Let's look into that.

Blue: Kim    Green: Lee    Orange: Park    Red: Choi    Purple: Jung    White: Other
Korea Stats 2000/Wikipedia (CC)

Many surnames have many ancestries in them. Uncommon surnames usually have one ancestry, like mine, Moon, which is the 23rd most common last name in South Korea (with 0.8 percent!). Then, in one ancestry, it may be divided into groups, known as 파 (Pa). It is usually founded by a person who leaves the 본관 (Bongwan, the place where the ancestry was started).

The most populous family, the Kim family, has a bit of history connecting to Korea's neighbors.

Many people with the surname "Kim" came from the Southeast side of the peninsula. Many Kim ancestries there are interconnected to one huge Kim ancestry, that founded the Shilla Dynasty.

Since many Japanese are thought to be of Korean descent, as the latest Korean immigration to Japan being in the 1940's, some Japanese "received" the last name "Kim" from former dynasties of Korea. Some are just descendants of the Koreans who immigrated there. It's complicated; in the 5-6th century Southern Korean dynasties discovered the land of Japan, taught them some stuff, in which the Japanese modified them into their own version (such as Karate and Sushi). That's when Japanese people became more closer to the other East Asians and shared their culture.

If you look at the Northern tip of North Korea, where it was occupied by many Korean and Manchurian Dynasties, South Manchuria was finally occupied forever by Joeson Dynasty of Korea in the 1400's. The Manchurian people who lived there at the time were "culturally mixed" with the Koreans there and became part of their ethnic identities. Many people then were considered to become a barely-known level of society between slaves and commoners, in which most of them were butchers. Off topic again, anyways in the Korean History Recorders, with many books recorded by royal historians at the time, shows in the 1400's, King Sejong the Great (Who made the Korean Writing system), gave some South Manchurians the last name of Kim. That's why, near the borders of North Korea, the People's Republic of China has many citizens with the surname Kum/Gum. 

Onto the Lees. it's pronounced as "E" in South Korea, because of the new pronunciation rule in the 60's and 90's, while North Korea still uses "Rhee". Yang is Liang, et cetra et cetra.  And the rest is too complicated for me to say.

But I can tell you a bit about my last name, Moon. With about 300,000~400,000 people with the last name, its only ancestry, the Hampyung Moons, originated in Hampyung District, Naju City, in Jeonla Province, founded by Dasung Moon, who later became one of the highest officials in Baekjae Dynasty. I'm 48 generations apart from him. 

The story of the Moons goes on like this. When the mayor of Naju was "playing" in the creek, he heard a baby cry. Soon, he discovered a little boy with really, really white skin (no offense!), and decided to raise him. Since the little boy was so good at recognizing most objects, his last name became Moon, which comes from Moonhwa, made up of two words, "Culture Flower". So, Moon=culture? Anyways, the Moons are divided into 6 groups, in which two of them went to the Island Province that used to be part of Jeonla at the time: Jeju Island. One group, the Namjaegongs, made by the great-great grandson of Dasung Moon, settled in Daejung, the Southwest corner of the island. And the Choongjaegongs, descendants of Ikjum Moon, probably the most famous Moon in Korea because he let cotton seeds enter into Korea (which was considered illegal in at-the-time Chinese dynasties, because they said that they wanted to keep their awesome culture inside their lands), and later Japan, settled in another part of Jeju. I said "another part", because I belong in the Namjaegongs and barely know it, through my friend who went to school with me in that island. And my grandfather lives in Illgwa Village, Daejung, which has the highest percentage of the Namjaegongs, so no wonder I know that fact. 

And also, some ancestries are "descedant" ancestries of some East Chinese ones, but since East China doesn't have one language but a lot, who cares? There's a lot of Ancestry group educational centers and meetings, too.

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Contact me at: thekoreanstory@outlook.com

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