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The Supreme Court studied how foreigners who gained Korean citizenship through the Seoul Family Court from October through December last year chose their surnames. The research revealed that 110 naturalized citizens chose 11 different surnames. The most preferred surname was Kim, which was selected by 51 new citizens, followed by Lee at 15, and Park and Choi with 14 and 11, respectively.

The popularity of the selected names corresponds to the representation of those four major surnames among Koreans. According to a 2000 study by the National Statistical Office, there were 9.926 million Koreans named Kim, making up 21.6 percent of the population. Next on the list were Lee, Park and Choi accounting for 14.8 percent, 8.5 percent and 4.7 percent of the population, respectively.

The other names chosen by naturalized citizens were Moon (5), Chang (4), Heo (3), Hwang (2), Baek (2), Ahn (2) and Yoon (1). Naturalized citizens are not required to take a Korean surname but many of them do so for convenience.

(englishnews@chosun.com )