Korean Names

Jen, I had done some research on Korean names for my boys and this is my understanding. The last name is first followed by a comma. There are only a handfull of Korean last names most common being Kim, Cho, and Park. The second set of names is hyphenated but is really used together. For example My older son's Korean name is Min-Ho. In Korea he would be callled Min-Ho not just Min so you may want to combine the names without a hyphen for a middle or first name. One of these names, usually the second name is a generational name. These are chosen by the family to name each child of a generation. This name would be used for all children in a family of the same generation. If a man has two brothers, he and his brothers bear one generational name and all his childeren and his brothers children will bear another generational name. For example he might be Min-Soo, his brothers would be Jin-Soo and Hung-Soo. The next generation might all be Song-Ho, Sing-Ho Etc. I think it is great that you know your baby's name was chosen by his birthmother. I would have used our son's Korean names if they had not been named by just the intake workers. We also had trouble trying to work with Min-HO. We named our older son Parker, Park being a common Korean last name. Our younger son was Tae-Min ( They are brothers ) We named him Ty. Same pronunciation, American spelling. Maureen

Maureen, Thanks so much for the valuable information. Your explanation really cleared up a lot of questions we were having regarding this subject. I think we are going to incorporate our son's Korean last name as his new middle name. Thanks again for providing such detailed information. Jen

My husband and I are newbies. We received our referral in early December for a boy! We are having trouble coming up with a name. We considered keeping part of his Korean name but we don't feel too attached to it since our referral states he was named by an intake worker. Now we're wondering should we give him a Korean middle name that we choose, use his Korean last name as his new middle name or what? We would love to hear from other parents. Thanks, Mo

Names are a personal choice BUT I know my teenage Korean adoptee is happy to have her Korean name as her middle name and she uses it all the time. Her drivers license has her First name (given by us) her full middle name (her Korean name) and our Last name. Her name was given by a social worker according to her Korean paper work and she knows this but she still loves her Korean name. At the time we named her we used her Korean name as her middle name even though she wasn't named by a birth family member. This name was hers for the time she was in Korea and was one of the few things she was able to bring with her to our family. Think if you child doesn't like his or her Korean name being part of their name they can drop it or just use the initial. If you don't keep any part of the Korean name and your child wants it there is a court process and their birth certificate always has to be accompanied by a legal change of name certificate. Its certainly easier to drop using a name instead of changing a name to add to it. Personally I see no reason to give your child a Korean name chosen by you since its really still just dropping the name the child was know by during their time in Korea.

Our son's name was also given by his birth mom, but we named him after my stepfather who passed away. We thought about using his last name "Park" and doing "Parker", but from what I learned, the last names are randomly given by the caretakers. Since it didn't have any attachment to him, we decided against it. We will definitely fill him in on his "real" name, though, - espcially since it means "Great Hero", which, of course is exactly that the little guy is to us. Naming your child is a truly personal decision. You can help him hang onto his heritage in ways beyond his name. You know the whole tune... a rose by any other name....

For our son, he was named by his birth mother and we kept his name as his middle name Brett Ha-Neul. For our daughter (who is not yet home), she was named by the social worker. But we still feel strongly in keeping the name. She was named Mi Ran (beautiful magnolia) and we are actually keeping it as her first name spelled Miran. We will call her Mira (like Mira Sorvino). We are very happy with our choice. I'd like to add, don't think their name is not important if the social worker or intake worker named your children. Koreans taking naming very seriously and most of the time great care was taken in naming each child, regardless of who actually named them. Plus, when the birthmother is known, the family surname is usually that of the birthmother (both of our children bear their birthmothers surname). I didn't feel compelled to keep the surname though, just the given name. Just my 2 cents!

I agree. The name is still important if the name is given by the intake worker. Our son was given his name by his birthmother and it is now his two middle names. Colin Kyoo Jin _____. We hope that someday he understands why it meant a lot for us to keep his name. We have an open adoption through Korea.

HLLB Congrats on your RECENT referral. We are waiting for our second child referral...but have about 11 more months to wait! ABC

Hey everyone! I'm a Korean-American adoptee, my parents knew my korean name and thought about keeping it. My korean name was Joon Lee. However after much thought, their decision to change my name was to avoid the confusion of my name being Joon. (or June is primarily a girl name.) They figured I might get made fun of since little kids can be ruthless when it comes to that kind of thing. So they changed it to Seth, however they always let me know that I had a Korean name and that it was also mine, and if I wanted to they would let me decide if I wanted to change it when I was old enough to make that kind of decision. (Basically when I was in my teens.) I still go by Seth because that's how I grew up as. I love that I have a second name, and that name has a special place in my heart however the name doesn't define me...it just identifies me. So I would encourage parents to use their own judgement in picking names. I feel it's important that adoptees know as much about their own past as they can and let them come to terms with it and decide whether or not they want to pursue it. (Of course, they should be at an age where they can make such decisions). Hope this helps in the picking of names. I enjoy giving my experience as a full-grown Korean adoptee. Feel free to ask me anything. Seth

Actually according to our agency, the last name is the birthmother's last name, unless birth father is involved, then it's his name. We found this out to late when we named our daughter. We had already used her first name Yung Eun as her new middle name. Just something to think about. Shelley

How can you tell if your child was named by a social worker or the birth mother? I couldn't tell looking at my daughter's records. As for what to name your childd, we ended up using a Romanized version of our daughter's Korean name. We had a difficult time pronouncing it and didn't want to completely confuse her.

We had a name picked out even before the referral came. It was Nathan. Then we saw his picture for the first time and decided he didn't look like a Nathan. His birth name was Suhjin. We named him Jin. He also was given 2 middle names that come from both our families so that he has names from his birth parents, my side and my wife's side. He probably wont be happy about the 2 middle names but oh we'll. lol

The important thing that concerns both parents and the rest of the family is the name of the baby. The big question arises: what name will suit the baby and when it should be chosen? Many times, it has been found that parents select the name of the baby before its birth and sometimes after the birth. Sometimes, parents spend a lot of time and also take the help of family members and others to choose a right name as they know the selected name will remain with the baby for the rest of the life. Best resource for Korean baby names and meaning is Babynology .com