Half of South Koreans Share The Same Three Surnames

You may have observed that an unexpectedly high percentage of South Koreans go by the names Kim, Park, or Lee. Do they all have a connection as a result? Obviously not. One of the interesting facts about Soeul is only three surnames, Kim, Lee, and Park, make up the appellations of about half of all Koreans, a phenomenon that may be entirely unique to the Korean culture, which is made up of about 75 million people who live on the Korean peninsula and another 7 million in the global diaspora.

According to statistics, there are only about 250 surnames now in use across the entire population (compared to the 100,000 in most similarly sized countries). Government records indicate that more than one-fifth of all Koreans, or around 10 million people, go by the surname "Kim," making it the clear winner by a significant margin. Smith, Jones, and Williams are the three most common surnames in the United States, however they are not as prevalent as Kim, Lee, and Park in Korea. Of course, compared to Korea, which is practically homogeneous, the United States is a much more ethnically varied country.

The causes of this date all the way back to the Silla kingdom (57 BCE–935 CE), and they are connected to their less than amicable connections with China and Japan.