The reason you rarely hear your first name in Korea

 

When you live in Korea, you can hardly hear your first name called. Every time I introduced my husband to my American friends in a party, I felt a little awkward to call my husband’s first name cause I hardly called him his first name. Strange?

Korea has been under the influence of Confucianism which means Koreans take “respect” and “manners” very seriously according to a person’s age and social hierarchy. Although modern society of Korea has no social class however, there still exists some tacit agreement. Korea had a type of caste system of nobleman and the common people and there were four classes which were scholars, farmers, artisans, and tradesmen. The system was gone when Korea went through the period of modernization, but the concept still exists in Korean people’s unconscious mind. So you should show respect to people whoever is older than you. Even twins have age difference and one who is born a minute late should call one a minute earlier an older sister/brother. Calling first name in Korea is regarded to be an act of looking down or s/he is immature, or the person is in a very close relationship.  

Due to this, we have various words to call people. First of all, “eon-ni”, “o-ppa”, “noo-na”, “hyung” are used in a family. The calling basis also depends on gender. When a girl calls her older brother, she uses “o-ppa”, and her older sister, “eon-ni” while a boy calls his older brother “hyung” and older sister “noo-na”. This concept expands further to a society with all older boys and older girls. These terms are regarded to express closeness in the relationship.

calling of family members

We use other words to refer the relationship in a formal way in schools or worksites which are “seon-bae” and “hoo-bae”. “seon-bae” is the term to call people who are older or higher and “hoo-bae” is for younger or lower. For example, if you are a rookie in a company, you should call all people who entered earlier “seon-bae-nim”. The last suffix “nim” is a polite form to call people. If the person has a title, then you need to add the title after the person’s last name such as “Kim bu-jang-nim” or “Park kwa-jang-nim”. You should never call them as first name in any condition. If the person is a professor then you should call him “Kim kyo-soo(professor)-nim”. If the person is a lawyer then “Kim byun-ho-sa(lawyer)-nim”. When you meet a person who doesn’t have a title then use “teacher” to show respect like “Kim seon-saeng(teacher)-nim” even though s/he has nothing to do with education. So we call people by their titles or their roles in a society, and to people without titles, we even give them a temporary title to show respect. That’s why you hardly hear your own first name in a Korean society.

staff level system in a company

Among married couples, Korean words of “honey” or “darling” are used but since my husband was my brother’s friend I called him “o-ppa” at first and after we got married, I got used to the calling and it was hard to change. One thing which is clear that whatever I change the calling, I should never call him his first name because he’s older than me. The interesting thing is that even older husband rarely calls his young wife first name after they have kids. For example when a couple has a baby named Jane, then they call each other “Jane’s mom” and “Jane’s dad”. Even your parents call you someone’s mom or dad when you get married and have kids. Of course you are called by your first name if you are not married yet but you have to poise yourself to answer all personal questions about marriage.

In conclusion, addressing someone in Korea is very important and you need to be careful to call Koreans.