N

NAMES

The typical Korean name set up is three syllables. The first is family name, usually followed by two given names. I'm for it. Sometimes siblings or even cousins all have the same second or third syllable, in addition to the first. Two of my students are sisters; the older sister's name is 윤미, and the younger sister's name is 윤미정. Some names can be directly translated to English, and it is more difficult to understand the meanings of others because of their Chinese roots.    

Haejung 이모 gave us Korean names:

Thomas
박믿음 - Park Mid Eum - Faith Park


Anna
박소망 - Park So Mang - Hope Park


Anna Curl
박사랑 - Park Sa Rang - Love Park

name gourds in Jeonju

I really enjoy knowing people's names and calling them by name, but that isn't the Korean way. It is very impolite to call people older than you by their name unless it is their family name followed by their title. Most of the time though, just their title is used: teacher, director, pastor, elder, mom, older sister, older brother...

This has led me [or really Thomas, Anna, and me] to have descriptive names for people and occasionally make up English names for them: the nice lady/Beth, the classy lady, happy camper, smiley guy, kim cutter, spunky/Ellen [because of her resemblance to the character in Mary Poppins], hipster, kitchen lady, nice new teacher, head honcho, Boston hat, Lorelai Gilmore, man teacher, glasses girl, and loud girl...just to name a few.