By Mark Peterson
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Korean genealogical specialists write about the "great surnames," the middle-sized surname groups, and the obscure or small-clan surname groups. There is a tendency toward prizing the larger family groups ― after all, Kim, Lee and Park were all royal names, literally, the names of kings in Korea's past.
And there tends to be a devaluing of the lesser clans. The clans in the middle are recognized as worthy members of the nation, but the small clans are sometimes demeaned.
There is a thing called the "seven low-class names" or the "10 low-class names". Here "low-class" is my translation of "sangnom," a word that was used more commonly when I first came to Korea, but now is almost a swear word or forbidden word. The list is of these so-called low-class names and they are often despised or at least snickered about, of course, behind the back of the person with one of the supposed low-class names.
As the frog outside the well, I'm here today to say that is all false.
The so-called low-class names are not low class at all. The measure for high class in Korea is passing an exam. The traditional definition of being a member of the yangban class is one who has passed an exam, or one who is within four generations of an exam passer. So, the question of who is, or who is not, a member of the yangban class is fairly easy to determine by this definition since we have a complete list of who passed the high service exam.
In examining the lists of exam passers, there certainly are numerous members of the Kim, Lee and Park families that passed exams, but what of those members of the obscure clans? How did they do in the examination system? Did they indeed pass and certify that they were part of the upper class?
To understand the class system of the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom, we need to understand that there were three distinct classes and membership in a class was clearly indicated on the census registration that was renewed every three years. There were the yangban, or the upper class; the commoners; and the slaves.
Generally speaking, the yangban or noblemen were those who were eligible to hold government offices, sit for the exams and own slaves. The commoners owned their own land, but could not sit for exams or hold government office, and did not own slaves. The slaves were owned by government offices and by yangban. Slaves comprised roughly a third of the population ― more than a third in the early Joseon period; less than a third in the late Joseon period. Roughly.
Passing the exam was the key to certifying that you were of noble status. It was not a means of social mobility ― in other words it was not a way for a commoner to become a nobleman; it was the way for a nobleman to certify or recertify that he was indeed a nobleman.
There were in fact numerous small clans that were represented in the exam-passing elite of Joseon. There were 11 clans that had only one person pass the exam over the 500-year history of the Joseon period. They had the following names, and most of you who are long-time residents of Korea have probably only run into one or two of them, if any: Bu, Dan, Dang, Dongbang, Gam, Sang, Yuk, In, Jang (4th character), Cho, Tae. The Jang character was the fourth different character pronounced Jang. The Cho character is an aspirated ch, not one of the two characters that are common for people named Jo.
There were seven clans that had only two people pass the exams: Gu (3), Guk, Ye, Ong, Jang (3), Ch'eon, Hyeong. The Gu character is the third; there is the common Gu character representing an often-heard name of Gu, or Koo, or other variations, but there were two uncommon Gu clans ― this one that passed two members, and the other, the second-most common, that passed six. The Jang character is the third-most common; we just met the fourth-most common above on the one-passer list.
The interesting thing to me at this point is the names that are listed as the seven so-called bad surnames had numerous people pass and were genuine yangban ― these include Ji, that had 10 passers, and Bang, of which there were two different characters ― one had 13 passers and the other had nine.
So the stereotype that there are certain obscure names that are not upper class is incorrect. The names on the list tend to be yangban and there were clan members who are able to take the exams and certify as yangban. So if you hear that there is a list of non-elite (sangnom) surnames, it is not true.
Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.
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