Korean Job Discussion Forums

[dulouz]

I have some students with two syllable names and no family name. Is that a scarlet letter (or syllable) for having no father?

[the_beaver]

[dulouz]

TY

[tomato]

That's what I thought at first, too.
But then I noticed the other teachers calling the child by his one-syllable name.

[visviva]

the beaver is right. Of course teachers and friends will call him (almost always a him) by the given name, possibly with the familiar -�� suffix. I have a student named ���� (Lee Hyeok). His friends call him ���� (Hyeogy). They might also just call him "Hyeok" (although they usually don't), just as �̼���'s friends might call him "Seong-min" as well as "Seong-minny."

Nothing stigmatic about this. Many scions of the royal Lee family bear single-syllable names -- Korea's last emperor, as I recall, was born Yi Cheok. The single-syllable thing seems to be especially popular among bearers of the �� name -- vide philosophers Yi I, Yi Ik, Yi Hwang. But it's also found in other ����.

[Ekuboko]

One of my students really hit the jackpot with a 3-barrelled first name,
���Ѵ�. She seems to be the only 2nd year student to be so 'lucky'.
I've got a few who just have a single syllable first name, too.

[casey's moon]

I have one student who has a two syllabled last name. Seems the parents are more progressive than most, and wanted him to have his mother and father's last names. His family name is Moonshin (����). I wonder what will happen if he meets and marries a woman in 20 years whose family name is Parklee (����)-- will their children be Moonshinparklee (���Ź���)?

I'm all for equal rights, but the name thing seems like it isn't all that practical in the long run....

[tomato]

How do Koreans with exceptional names fill out application forms with three spaces for the name?
I happen to be lucky, because the common Korean form of Thomas happens to be �丶��. So I just write in those three syllables, pretending that my family name is �� and my given name is ����.

[tzechuk]

[JacktheCat]