Min (Korean name)


Min is an uncommon Korean family name as well as a common syllable in Korean given names.

As a family name

The family name Min is written with only one hanja. The 2000 South Korean Census found 159,054 people in 48,935 households with this name, making it the 47th-most-common surname among the 286 surnames listed in the census. This represented growth of 3.8 percent from 137,317 in the 1985 census, a far smaller increase than the fifteen percent growth in the overall South Korean population over the same period. The family name Min has one major clan lineage, the Yeoheung Min clan, whose bon-gwan is Yeoheung-gun, Gyeonggi Province. The 2000 census found 142,752 people in 43,887 households belonging to this clan. The Yeoheung Min clan itself has several other smaller sub-lineages such as the Gyeongju Min clan and the Yeongju Min clan, and roughly 30 other sub-lineages recorded historically, though not all have survived to modern times.
People with the family name Min include:

Hanja and meaning

In given names, the meaning of Min differs based on the hanja used to write it. There are 27 hanja with the reading Min, and four variant forms, on the South Korean government's official list of hanja which may be used in given names; they are:
  1. : "the people"
  2. : "agile"
  3. : "pity"
  4. : "beautiful gemstone"
  5. : "heaven"
  6. : "gentle"
  7. : the surname Min
  8. : "jade"
  9. *: variant forms
  10. : the name of a mountain
  11. : "to exert"
  12. *: variant form
  13. : "intelligence"
  14. : "tough"
  15. : "concerned"
  16. : "trickling water"
  17. : "robustness"
  18. : "strong"
  19. : "to perish"
  20. : "stifling"
  21. : "fishing line"
  23. : "coin string"
  25. : name of a tribe
  26. : "sight"
  27. : "net"
  28. : "jade"
  29. : "jade"

    As name element

Many names containing the syllable Min have been popular for newborn children in South Korea in recent decades:
;Newborn boys
;Newborn girls
Other given names with this syllable include:
People with the single-syllable given name Min include: