Korean Job Discussion Forums

[happiness]

Ive noticed that some Chinese and few Japanese will adopt an English name, but in Korea, every student does, all the way to uni and some businessmen as well. Is there a reason for this?

I would think if they were truly proud of their heritage, theyd just use their names.

On the other side, when Im asked if I have a Korean name, I say no and I love my family name and the history behind (Jewish). Mostly I get strange looks...


anyone?

[Captain Corea]

Odd. I've found mostly the opposite. If I ask them if they'd like me to use their Korean name or and English one, most will tell me Korean names.

Each school/camp/business/whatever seems to have certain rules about this though.

[happiness]

[tatu]

It's easier for businessmen who travel overseas.

[Jake_Kim]

Aren't you mixing up a name of convenience with an official name of an individual, a core of one's identity?

If the majority of Koreans start giving their offspring English names that also appear on the family registry and government ID, etc., and calling each other by English names when talking in Korean among themselves, then I'll give your observation a thought.

Until then, the only reason of adopting one is most certainly because non-Koreans never get Korean names right, find them hard to pronounce or remember, hence causing inconvenience for Koreans engaging in global interaction and/or business.

[Landros]

they have English names because I force them to. Also some use Christian names they get at church.

[DanseurVertical]

The matter is probably more nuanced than Jake_Kim suggests, but this seems right in my experience.

Like he suggests, I think it results mostly from foreigner feedback or anticipation of what it will be.

Most Koreans who have very little experience speaking to foreigners don't realize that my grasp of the Korean language is much greater than most who have been here for less than a year. When I first moved here and met such people, they didn't understand that I probably could not remember the name, unless given a written copy of it.

Koreans who have more experience with foreigners are aware of the average Korean language skill of a foreigner (in Korea or abroad) and so are more likely to use an English name (or in some odd cases a name of another European language). An exception are Koreans whose Korean name is easy for English speakers, e.g., "Mi Young".

Now that I actually can remember Korean names (if I intend to), I sometimes think, "just tell me your Korean name." But I think I understand why some don't.

Lastly, I think there's a growing awareness in Korea of the concept of "global citizen". And whether one likes it or not, English has become our global language. Some Koreans who have spent time abroad, I think, identify more as "global citizen" than resident of a small, historically insular country. Or at least, they can change between identities without feeling some internal conflict.

[CentralCali]

At my public school, there are two boys whose legal name is Joseph (in Korean, of course) and one boy whose legal name is Zion (again, in Korean, of course).

As mentioned above, many schools require the students to "adopt" an English name. When I took Spanish in middle and high school, all the students were required to adopt a Spanish name. Later, when I attended Defense Language Institute, all the students there were required to take a name from the language studied. Evidently, it's part of some educational philosophy in which the student is supposed to gain some kind of identification with the culture that goes with the language.

One of the more inane reasons I've heard from a Korean hagweon teacher is, "Foreigners can't learn Korean. That's why the students must have English names." Come to think of it, I should've laughed at her and then reminded her that most Korean names are "badly pronounced Chinese names" just to show her how stupid she was being.

[jinks]

[sadguy]

to the OP, i don't think it has anything to do with being proud of their heritage. it's just a nickname they get to use in english class. they leave it at school or at the hagwon. outside of that, no one calls them that. it's akin to american students having to use a spanish name in spanish class. i also think it's fun because it gives kids a chance to use a nickname.

[sublunari]

The real issue isn't being addressed here: foreigners with stupid Korean names. Like me, for example. After discovering that the word 이안류, ianyoo, means riptide, it was inevitable that I would adopt that word as my third Korean name, since my English name is Ian. The second name was 남산정, after the awful neighborhood in Busan I used to live in; it was almost guaranteed to crack up any Korean who heard it; the first was the extraordinarily stupid and ill-fated 공룡, or "dinosaur".

[johnnyrook]

As mentioned, taking an English name can be for the sake of avoiding any pronunciation problems. Certainly, with Koreans I know who have lived abroad, the ones who have chosen to go by their real name abroad have had names that are very easy for English speakers to pronounce (although that's not to say all those who took English names have difficult names to pronounce).

My girlfriend's name is actually very difficult to pronounce so she always uses her English name with non-Korean speakers, although I call her by her real name and have since we first started dating, I put the effort in to get it right way back then even though I didn't really know anything about Korean at the time, just seemed ridiculous to me to refer to my partner with a phoney name. But I know other foreign men who have or were dating Korean girls and called them by their English names. I still refer to her with her English name when talking to a lot of relatives and friends just to avoid confusion. The strange thing is many of our mutual Korean friends will use her English name when talking about her with me, even though I'll be using her Korean name.

Another thing about Korean culture is that people don't often refer to others by their names, especially not once they get older, and definitely not to those who are senior to you. Instead they use titles like professor, teacher, manager, etc. So I guess taking an English name can be liberating from this kind of cultural restriction.

My boss has an English name which I always refer to him with. I know it would not be appropriate and likely extremely awkward for him and the other staff and any students who might be present for me to address him by his Korean name, and likewise it would be very uncomfortable for me to refer to him as Manager or Boss.

Even Mr So and So would be strange for me with someone I had a direct work relationship with, but I don't know if that's true of all western cultures or just Australia. I understand the social distance in Australia is pretty low, pretty much once you finish High School the only people you'd regularly interact with who you wouldn't really address on a first name basis would be your parents and grandparents.

[FMPJ]

[soulofseoul]

A question that I guess I should ask Koreans is, why do they say their family name to even close friends and family? I can understand if its to a stranger naturally

[wishfullthinkng]