New surnames on the rise with Korea's emerging multiculturalism

By Kim Eun-jung
SEOUL, Feb. 10 (Yonhap) -- The number of completely new Korean family names and
clans seems to be rising just about every day in South Korea, with growing
numbers of marriage immigrants choosing to create their own names to adapt to the
local community.
South Korea, according to a census conducted in late 2000, had 286 family names
divided into 4,179 clans, with Kim, Lee and Park among the most popular Korean
surnames.
With a growing influx of foreigners to South Korea over the last decade, more
foreigners are crafting their own Korean family names or taking popular Korean
surnames under their original clans, court documents showed Thursday.
In South Korea, having the same last name does not always mean that people are
related. For over 1,000 years, Koreans have maintained a unique system of using
the name of their hometown as an important way to differentiate their identities.
For example, there are 285 regional origins for Kims, such as the "Gyeongju Kim"
clan and the "Gimhae Kim" clan.
The number of naturalized foreigners who register their own last names under new
clans has steadily increased, rising to 7,038 last year, up from 3,193 in 2008
and 5,893 in 2009, according to the Supreme Court, which oversees family name
registrations.
Most of them, however, took existing Korean surnames with a new clan based on
their origins, giving some historical background of where they came from. For
example, two recently registered clan names in the nation's census data were
"Mongol Kim" and "Taeguk Tae," the latter derived from the first syllable of the
Korean word for Thailand.
The most widely used last name, Kim, makes up 22 percent, which is equivalent to
almost 10 million people, while those surnamed Lee account for 14 percent.
The hike is in tandem with the steady and growing influx of foreign spouses from
Southeast Asian nations through international marriages and new immigration laws
allowing Chinese nationals of Korean background to acquire Korean citizenship.
The number of foreigners naturalized as Koreans surpassed the landmark 100,000
last month, 63 years after the establishment of the South Korean government in
1948.
Although there are foreigners who apply for their own family names soon after
getting citizenship here, a considerable number of them created new names as
their children prepared to enroll in Korean schools, officials said, indicating
persisting prejudice against children from multicultural families.
"In the case of women who came here to marry Korean men, they do not care much
about making their own family name as their children follow their father's
surname under his clan," a court official said.
ejkim@yna.co.kr
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