A couple that we are good friends with had their first baby girl. We were very lucky, as they live in Seoul, but came to Daejeon to have their baby. It turns out the hospital they chose was behind the apartment I lived at two years ago! It’s very odd. The last time I saw this couple, it turns out the woman was a few weeks pregnant but had no idea. Now we’ve skipped through the entire pregnancy and they’ve already got the baby delivered!
We saw the baby today. It had been delivered yesterday. She’s a healthy baby girl, but doesn’t have a name yet. A long time ago in Korea, parents of newborns asked their paternal parents (the new grandparents) to name the children.
This can be a bad thing. I knew a student with a name that made Koreans burst out laughing. His name was “Cheon Won”, which means “1000 Won”, as in, the smallest denomination bill available in Korea. Imagine naming your kid “One Dollar” or whatever handy denomination you have in your pocket at the moment. What an awful name. When I asked the mother why he was named this chuckle worthy name, she grumbled that it was her husband’s parents choice.
There are plenty of terrible Korean names when written into English as well. The syllables “Suk”, “Bum”, and “Dong” are far, far, FAR too common in parent’s naming choices judging by my class rosters. Whenever a name invokes images of sodomy in another language, it’s probably a bad name. (I throw that ‘probably’ in there only to be culturally tolerant of non-English speaking parents not knowing what they are getting into sometimes.)
Nowadays, parents can name their children too, it’s no longer an expected tradition between generations. However, this couple has let the grandparents choose a name. Right now they aren’t sure if the name the parents chose is what they are going to stick with. I don’t know what their objection with the name was, or if it was simply they hadn’t decided on anything due to a lack of sleep.
As of now, it’s up in the air as to what the baby will be called. It’s not actually a problem in Korean anyway, as people don’t address each other with names unless they have to for some specific reason. They use titles most of the time. For now, it’s just “baby”.
