What's In A Name?

鄭 義 龍

CHUNG EUI YONG

Well, our little man doesn't have an "American" name yet, but he has been honored with his Korean name already. Here is a neat little lesson in Korean culture...

Min's father's family has a record of all the men in the 32 previous generations. That makes our son 33rd generation and that is almost 1000 years! (I can go back - maybe...5 generations)

Traditionally, the paternal grandfather selects his son's children's names - so, in keeping with tradition, Min's dad has chosen his first grandson's name.

Korean names are based on corresponding Chinese characters for their meanings - so those are Chinese - not Korean characters above. The first character is the symbol for Chung. The second character, Eui, means "righteous." The Chinese character for Yong means "dragon" (but Dragon is the symbol for "King" in Korean culture). So his name means "Righteous King" - that's a big name to grow into, but we like it!

Apparently, a man came to Min's dad in a dream and told him this would be a good name...he didn't understand the meaning of the dream until we told him last week about his grandson! Dreams are a big deal in Korean culture and you can "buy" someone's good fortune dream from them. Dreaming about a snake on your roof means a boy is on the way. Go figure...

Now we need to come up with an American name for Eui Yong.....