In South Korea, having the same last name does not always mean people are related. For over 1,000 years, Koreans have maintained a unique system of using the name of their hometown as an important way to differentiate their identities. For example, there are 285 regional origins for Kims, such as the “Gyeongju Kim” clan and the “Gimhae Kim” clan.

The number of naturalized foreigners who register their own last names under new clans has steadily increased, rising to 7,038 last year, up from 3,193 in 2008 and 5,893 in 2009, according to the Supreme Court, which oversees family name registrations.

Most of them, however, took existing Korean surnames with a new clan based on their origins, giving some historical background of where they came from. For example, two recently registered clan names in the nation’s census data were “Mongol Kim” and “Taeguk Tae,” the latter derived from the first syllable of the Korean word for Thailand.

The most widely used last name, Kim, makes up 22 percent, which is equivalent to almost 10 million people, while those surnamed Lee account for 14 percent.

The hike is in tandem with the steady and growing influx of foreign spouses from Southeast Asian nations through international marriages and new immigration laws allowing Chinese nationals of Korean background to acquire Korean citizenship.

The number of foreigners naturalized as Koreans surpassed the landmark 100,000 last month, 63 years after the establishment of the South Korean government in 1948.

Although there are foreigners who apply for their own family names soon after getting citizenship here, a considerable number of them created new names as their children prepared to enroll in Korean schools, officials said, indicating persisting prejudice against children from multicultural families.

“In the case of women who came here to marry Korean men, they do not care much about making their own family name as their children follow their father’s surname under his clan,” a court official said. (Yonhap News)