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Min-jun & Seo-yeon Most Popular Korean Names

January 14, 2014
The first Korean baby born in Los Angeles in 2014 was named Ye-ju by her father Kim Hyo-young, 42, and mother Lee Sun-nam, 30, of La Mirada, California. (Jung Gu-hoon)

The first Korean baby born in Los Angeles in 2014 was named Ye-ju by her father Kim Hyo-young, 42, and mother Lee Sun-nam, 30, of La Mirada, California. (Jung Gu-hoon)

By Lee Kyutae

Koreans have a saying – “If you throw a rock from top of a mountain, you are going to hit either Kim or Lee.” Those two last names are that common in Korea, along with Park.

But, what about first names? Various Korean media have recently reported that it’s still Min-jun (민준) for boys and Seo-yeon (서연) for girls, followed by Ji-hoon (Ji-hoon) and Ji-won (지원), respectively. For girls, similar names such as Seo-hyun (서현) and Seo-young (서영) were also very popular.

According to court records, during the 1940s and 1950s, names starting with the letter ‘Young’ (영) were very popular. Young-soo (영수) and Young-ho (영호) for boys, and Soon-ja (순자), Young-ja (영자) for girls were the most common names in 1948. And, the general preference didn’t change much for next ten years, as the order was still Young-soo (영수), Young-chul (영철), and Young-ho (영호) for boys and Young-sook (영숙), 정숙 (Jung-sook), and Young-hee (영희) for girls in 1958.

In 1968, Sung-ho (성호), Young-soo (영수), Young-ho (영호) for boys, and Mi-kyung (미경), Mi-sook (미숙), Kyung-hee (경희) for girls were most popular, and in 1978, the hottest baby names were Jung-hoon (정훈), Sung-hoon (성훈), Sang-hoon (상훈), and Sung-jin (성진) for boys, and Ji-young (지영), Eun-jung (은정), Mi-young (미영), Hyun-jung (현정) for girls.

The most popular names changed to Ji-hoon (지훈), Sung-min (성민), Hyun-woo (현우) for boys, and Ji-hye (지혜), Ji-eun (지은), Soo-jin (수진), and Hye-jin (혜진) for girls in 1988 to Dong-hyun (동현), Ji-hoon (지훈), Sung-min (성민) and Hyun-woo (현우) for boys, and You-jin (유진), Min-ji (민지), Soo-bin (수빈), Ji-won (지원) in 1998.

Dong-hyun (동현) and You-jin (유진) remained the most popular until 2003, but it’s been Min-jun (민준) and Seo-yeon (서연) ever since.

According to SBS-TV report, an average of more than 400 Koreans filed for a name change in 2013, and Min-joon and Seo-yeon topped the list here also.