Shared last names

[shibo77]

If marriages between Kims are not allowed, then that means a Kim will have to marry a non-Kim, and half of the time it will be a male, and that would bring in another family of Kims. Since Kims represent a large portion of the Korean population, would this rule not make more and more Kims? Eventually the whole of Korea would be 金?

In North Korea 이(李i) is written 리(李ri).

My mother knows a person named 东方红, but she didn't like it so she changed it to 东芳红. She had thought that her surname was 东 rather than 东方, so not sure...

There is a television program on CCTV-1 a few years ago about surnames, all the surnames on the «百家姓», it interviews people and traces their origin back to a person, an event, a town... lots of history involved, very interesting.

Also, does anyone have any information on the surname 酒jiu3? I know that it is a minority but I forgot which, I guess 回Hui?

-Shìbó

[Yuchi]

Isn't Seoul = 首都

Isn't it more like 首尔

I'm lucky enough to have a double-name, my friend thought I was Japanese at first

[盤古]

Isn't it more like 首尔

Maybe he was asking if the word "Seoul" meat 首都 which means capital and yes it does.

I'm lucky enough to have a double-name, my friend thought I was Japanese at first

Why is it considered "lucky" to have a double-syllable surname? And what is it BTW?

[pazu]

I have no doubt that a lot of clans in Japan' date=' Korea, Vietnam, Thailand,....etc have their roots in China.

Some act really open though. The Thai Royal Family never denied that they got Chinese blood in their lineage.

But some countries like Korea and Vietnam are very sensitive about this issue.[/quote']

Perhaps because of the very distinctive difference between China and Thailand so the Thai never needed to deny the general existence of Chinese blood in the people.

[Ian_Lee]

Thailand is the point where the influence of Chinese culture and Indian culture converge.

Chinese cultural influence gradually diminishes while Indian cultural influence gains in the countries west of Thailand while vice versa in the countries east of Thailand.

[Yuchi]

Why is it considered "lucky" to have a double-syllable surname? And what is it BTW?

I guess it's lucky because I feel special lol

I've never encountered another person with a chinese double-syllable surname here in Florida, so that makes it even more special

尉迟 is my last name.

[skylee]

Just yesterday I talked to a Miss Au-yeung (Putonghua - Ouyang) over the phone. 歐陽 is a fairly common 複姓 in Hong Kong.

I would think that 尉遲 is quite rare. It is special. Lucky or not I don't know.

[xuefang]

they (Korean) had the strange custom/law that couple with the same last name could not get married

I have read that Chinese would have/had the same custom. But I guess I can't trust to that information. Or have it been a custom in China earlier?

[atitarev]

Isn't it more like 首尔

I'm lucky enough to have a double-name' date=' my friend thought I was Japanese at first [/quote']

I also found 汉城 or 漢城 (full form) [Hànchéng] for Seoul, which one is right 汉城 or 首尔? There's no Hanja (Hanzi) version of Seoul in Korean (one major exception). It's always written in Hangul (Korean alphabet) - 서울.

For Pyongyang I found 平壤 [Píngrǎng] (in Hangul: 평양) but I saw another version with the same first character but the second one was different? Do you know it? Probably 平壤 is more correct because it's also the way Koreans write it - when they use Hanja (漢字). In Japanese it's 平壌 and is pronounced Heijō

[skylee]

which one is right 汉城 or 首尔?

Take a look -> Name Change

[atitarev]

Could someone tell me why the korean surname 李 is romanized as "Lee" when in fact it is pronounced as "yi" or "ee"? I've asked this at the thorntree but no one seemed to know.

Haven't checked if your question was answered but it's historical reasons - this last name used to be pronounced Li. It's more like Ri (R - the sound between L and R, like Japanese R) in North Korea and like Yi in South Korea, in South Korea initials drop L/R sound. As for Yi/Yee/I and other versions - there are too many romanizations for Korean, the sound is really similir to Chinese Yi (一). If it's spelled like Li/Ri it reflects the spelling but not the pronunciation in South Korea.

Thanks for answering on Seoul question too!

[Lu]

尉迟 is my last name.

Never saw that name before, that is really special. But I can imagine your friend thought it was Japanese, it looks really Japanese to me.

If marriages between Kims are not allowed, then that means a Kim will have to marry a non-Kim, and half of the time it will be a male, and that would bring in another family of Kims. Since Kims represent a large portion of the Korean population, would this rule not make more and more Kims? Eventually the whole of Korea would be 金?

I've been thinking about that too. Statistically, half of the Kims are men, who start a new Kim family. But the other half are women, whose children will not be Kims. So the number of Kims won't grow, I think.

[trien27]

This is in response to Skylee's post:

"Could someone tell me why the korean surname 李 is romanized as "Lee" when in fact it is pronounced as "yi" or "ee"? I've asked this at the thorntree but no one seemed to know."

because most Koreans' surnames are either from Cantonese or Mandarin, so in Sino-Korean hanja, it's Lee, borrowed into Korean from Cantonese. In Native Korean it should be

Yi [ 이 ] because in Korean it's written Like [ 이 ] : [ 0 ] is silent at the beginning of a "word, name" in Hangul. [ I ] = the sound of the letter i in English. Rhee [리] is an alternative native sounding name, because the letter which represents the "L" sound, also represents the "R" sound, so people who are confused pronounced "Lee" as "Rhee".

Note: Hangul is used. If you can't see the hangul, you don't have Korean language packs installed.

[fireball9261]

尉迟 is my last name.

尉迟 was the last name of a famous Tang dynasty general. He, eventually, became one of the two gods who guarded Chinese doors. You could still see their pictures pasted or painted on Chinese doors in many Taiwan and Hong Kong houses.

Also, there are still people with that last name in China and Taiwan and other places. I don't think it is even that rare a last name.