Help with Korean Character Names

Frank
Bill (short for William)
Alan
Beth (short for Elizabeth)
Nancy, or with a 'I' (for flare)
June
Karen
Oscar
Kelly (works for boys and girls)

If these don't help try -
http://babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/korean-names.html

A couple of general articles, mostly dealing with surnames here:

http://www.korea.net/news/news/newsView.asp?serial_no=20090812004

http://www.johncooke.com/name/korean-hmong-laotian-cambodian.htm

and of course, Wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_name

This isn't perfect, but in combination with a list of Korean given names, it may give you a better idea of what you're looking for. Also, for names in Romanized forms, try looking for U.S. or U.K. directories of Korean associations in those countries.

I am by no means an expert, but I can share what I know about my mother-in-law's family (which is very little). My MIL's birthplace is listed as Seoul, Korea. Her father was killed during the war when she was a very small child (2-3). I do not know if he had an occupation aside from being in the military.

She and her mother both have the same second syllable name: In Sun and Il Sun.
Her four brothers all have the same first syllable name: Nae Yuan, Nae Chan, etc. (can't remember the other two off the top of my head)

So if there is a visable naming pattern for your characters, I would imagine it would be between mother and daughter. Wives keep their name and children take on their father's surname. I remember this because when I addressed wedding invites I had no idea this one person was her mother, because she did not have the "Pak" surname.



ETA: I found this at Wikipedia and explains why the brothers all have the same first syllable name:

The family name is typically a single syllable, and the given name two syllables. There is no middle name in the Western sense. Many Koreans have their given names made of a generational name syllable and an individually distinct syllable, while this practice is declining in the younger generations. The generational name syllable is shared by siblings in North Korea, and by all members of the same generation of an extended family in South Korea. Married men and women usually keep their full personal names, and children inherit the father's family name.

Click to expand...

Here is the link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_name



So based on this information, the surname of the daughter needs to match that of her father. And then you could do like my mother-in-law and her mother and have the second syllable of their names the same to show some sort of connection between daughter and grand-daughter since their surnames would not match.

The "first" name (Park in your first example) is the "family" name, like Smith or Jones. The second name is the given name, like John or Jimmy. ETA: I learned this while stationed in S. Korea, but I'm not familiar enough to pick out regional name. Good luck!

I'm going to tae kwon do class tonight and, if you like, I can ask our old Korean instructor. There are about 20 or so Korean kids in the class (all South Korean) if you like I can give some names based on that.

All I can offer is from when I lived in Seoul in '63-'65. We had a man who worked for us. His name was No Oon Choong (I'm spelling his given name the way it was pronounced, not necessarily the way it would be written in English). His older son was No Ho Min. I don't remember the name of his younger son.

MM

Few people realize this, but Wikipedia is actually a tremendous resource when it comes to national/ethnic names and naming conventions.

for Korean Names, go HERE.

I live in Seoul now and am somewhat familiar with Korean names, but not the different dialectal names from North Korea, obviously.
None of the names sound terribly familiar. Also, remember that wive's will not share the same surname as their husbands.
Very popular names would be Ji-yeon (the Jennifer of Korea) Yu-na, Su-bin (long I sound, like Soo-bean), Joo-Hee, Yeon-hwa....these are all female names. Lemm know if you need boys. I'll check my class roster today.

This is good information. I also have been researching Korean names from both North and South Korea.

I am hoping to talk to some Korean experts at work to get a better understanding of naming conventions.

Actually, one of my students told me that Ji-won (지원) is the most common girl's name. If you want anything else, just ask. Remember that the surname is first and most names have three phonemes, but some have two. Any other combination is extremely rare.

I know a Korean woman named Sang-mi. You could look in scientific journal articles from Korea and get names from there. However, there is no indication if they are male or female. You could also look at names from the Korean Olympic teams (I've done this for other nationalities).