Korean surnames, evidence of stable history
By Mark Peterson
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Germany, the United States, and many other countries have thousands of surnames. But Korea has only 250. Why? That is the question. What is the reason there are so few surnames in Korea?
A related question is why are so many people named Kim? The answer, 21 percent, becomes a new question ― why such a high percentage? And the same question for Lee (Yi, Rhee) at 15 percent and Pak (Park, Bak) at 9 percent.
The problem in Korea is that no one sees this as a question! It's just assumed that three surnames take in 45 percent of the population and that is normal. Well, it's normal for Korea, but it is absolutely odd for every other country on the planet. The only cultural saying about these three surnames is the "sokdam" ― "If you throw a rock from Mount Nam in Seoul, it will hit a Kim, a Lee or a Pak. But that is only an observation ― it's not an explanation. What is the explanation for only three surnames covering 45 percent of the population? There must be a cultural or historical reason.
The next two surname groups in Korea, in order, after Kim, Yi, and Pak, are Choe and Jeong, each at 5 percent. Either of these two would be the largest surname group in most countries of the world.
The first thing to realize ― like a frog coming out from the well, so to speak ― is that Korea has a really, really unusual set of surnames ― there are very few, and each includes a huge portion of the general population. Once we recognize Korea has a unique concentration of surnames, then we must ask the question of why.
It has taken me about 53 years to figure it out. But I think I finally have.
The answer dawned on me from looking at another factor within Korean history. Lately, I've been working on the remarkable peaceful and stable tradition of Korean history. I've found myself going against the common narrative ― that Korean history is full of war, turmoil, chaos and invasions. Earlier in this series I wrote about the invasions question and I concluded that Korea has really had very few invasions, and that there were centuries of peace and stability between invasions. In addition, in previous articles in this series, I've looked at the remarkable stability of Korean dynasties ― that they last 500 or 1,000 years. You don't find that in other countries.
My "seonbaenim" at Harvard, Martina Deuchler, has concluded that Korea has had only one ruling aristocracy for over 1,500 years. In other words, the ruling elite of the Silla period carried into the Goryeo period, and through the Joseon period. Nothing ever happened to destroy the ruling aristocracy of the previous dynasty. That is the key. In other countries, when a dynasty falls, the subsequent dynasty largely destroys the aristocracy including the royal family of the fallen dynasty. It never happened in Korea. Kim, Lee, and Pak are royal names ― the royalty of Silla and Gaya were both Kim. Pak was also a royal line ― in fact, the founding king of Silla was named Pak. And Lee dates back to the Silla period as one of the tribes in one of the six villages of Seorabeol (yukbu-chon), but became the royal family of Joseon, the 500-year dynasty going back to 1392.
The exception to the rule, to the Korean rule, but actually conforming to the rule of other countries, was what happened to the aristocracy of Baekje ― it was completely destroyed and none of those eight surnames we know from the Baekje period have survived into the present (more about this in a subsequent installment).
With the exception of Baekje (and partially for Goguryeo), the dynasties moved from one to the next in a relatively non-disruptive manner. And this is the reason there are so many people named Kim, Lee and Pak.
And looking at it from the other way around, the fact the 21 percent of Koreans are named Kim is proof of the peaceful history of Korea. That Lee is 15 percent and that Pak is 9 percent are living evidence that Korea's history is stable and peaceful. More so than any other country on the planet.
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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