O (surname)


O or Oh, is a family name in Korea. It is mostly commonly written using the same Hanja character as the Chinese family name, Wu. However there are also other different Hanja available to use for it. According to the 2015 census in South Korea, there were 763,281 people carrying the O surname.

History

O also spelled Oh is the Korean form of the Chinese surname Wu. The character 吳 is phonetically pronounced "Oh" in Korean, but "Wu" in Mandarin Chinese, however the historic origin of the surname is the same.
The name originates from the ancient state of Wu in present-day province of Jiangsu. Wu is the sixth name listed in the Song Dynasty classic Hundred Family Surnames.
In the 13th century BC, the state of Zhou was ruled by Tai Wang. His surname was originally Ji. He had three sons: Taibo, Zhongyong, and Jili. King Tai of Zhou favored the youngest son, Jili to inherit the reins of power, therefore Taibo and his brother Zhongyong voluntarily left Zhou with a group of followers and headed southeast where they established the state of Wu. Taibo and Zhongyong's descendants eventually adopted Wu as their surname. The state of Wu, which later claimed to be a kingdom of its own, was best known for its military prowess as Sun Tzu, the author of the famed book The Art of War, was the country's general serving under King Helü of Wu. Wu is also generally attributed to developing the first Chinese Navy. This Navy was quite complex and had different classes of ships. These "classes" of ships were the great wing, the little wing, the stomach striker, the castle ship, and the bridge ship. These were listed in the Yuejueshu as a written dialogue between King Helü of Wu and Wu Zixu in which the latter stated:

Nowadays in training naval forces we use the tactics of land forces for the best effect. Thus great wing ships correspond to the army's heavy chariots, little wing ships to light chariots, stomach strikers to battering rams, castle ships to mobile assault towers, and bridge ships to light cavalry.

King Helu of Wu is considered to be one of the Five Hegemons of China during the Spring and Autumn period.
Taibo and Zhongyong's youngest brother Jili stayed to rule the Zhou state and was the grandfather of Wu Wang who started the Zhou Dynasty after successfully overthrowing the Shang Dynasty. The descendants of Wu Wang eventually changed their surname from Ji to Zhou during the Qin Dynasty to commemorate the merits and virtues of their ancestors.
Therefore, the last names Wu, Zhou, and Ji are historically related.
Wu Ch'om, a 45th generation descendant of the famed Chinese general and strategist Wu Qi, migrated to Korea from China during the reign of Shilla's King Jijeung. He is the ancestor of all 16 Korean "Oh" clans. His direct descendant, Oh Da-ryeon was the magistrate of the province of Naju and helped Taejo of Goryeo to establish the Goryeo Dynasty and was the father of Queen Janghwa of Goryeo. Queen Janghwa gave birth to King Hyejong of Goryeo who was the second king of Goryeo.
The O family of North Korea is a North Korean family whose members have been considered close to the ruling Kim family over several generations because of O Jung-hup, who was a revolutionary fighter closely associated with Kim Il-sung. They are regarded as being highly influential in the North Korean regime and second only to the Kim's.

Distribution

During both the 1990 and year 2000 US Censuses, fewer than 100 people in the United States had the name O, but Oh was ranked as the 3,508th most common surname in 1990 and the 2,477th most common surname in 2000. Using a single-letter surname may cause various bureaucratic and social difficulties, as many computer programs cannot deal with such names because they are designed to require a minimum of two or three letters, while people may assume that a single letter is only an abbreviation rather than the complete surname; in 1991, The New York Times wrote an article about one Korean American man surnamed O who ended up changing the spelling of his name to Oh to get around these problems.

List of persons with the surname