
Why Korean companies are forcing their workers to go by English names - gotchange
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/why-korean-companies-are-forcing-their-workers-to-go-by-english-names/2017/05/12/6a9298fc-3590-11e7-b412-62beef8121f7_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_skorea-1pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.910055cd40c5
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vivekd
>Companies in English education, tourism, trade or other globally focused
industries typically have English nickname policies. They want to accommodate
foreign business partners who can’t decipher between Lee Ji-yeong and Lee Ji-
yeon. “They’re thoughtful people,” Hong said. “It’s to be kind to foreign
people.”

I lived in Korea for about a year and a half and Korean names were near
impossible for me to remember en mass. That's because all Koreans have 3
syllable names, and they all use the same few syllables. To make it worse,
many of these syllables sound alike!!!

When you have to remember the names of 20 or more people and they're like

"Kim-Yeon Lee" "Kim-Yeung Ye" "Kim-Hyun Ji"

I don't know how a non-Korean can keep up with that for any length of time
when it involves a large number of Koreans. Many Koreans who speak English
have English names they choose for interacting with foreigners and none of
them seem to mind. It is very considerate of them because having to remember
their Korean names can be painful for non-Koreans. I imagine it's also because
my difficulty with Korean names was not something unique. It's probably
something they noticed among many foreigners and compensated for.

~~~
coev
I feel like this will be an issue in the US in the future with the popularity
of names like Aiden, Brayden, Jayden etc. over the last few years.

~~~
robodale
You forgot Okayden

~~~
tzakrajs
And Fayden, get fayded yo

~~~
johntran
Mayden China

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hocuspocus
First, not all western names are "English", come on.

Things are complicated:

\- A good chunk of Koreans are Christians (either Catholics or American style
Protestants), and get a biblical name at baptism.

\- Many employees at those high-profile companies have studied or even lived
abroad, and might have used another first name there. Some dual-citizens
(which is a fairly new thing in Korea) even have different first names on
their respective passports.

\- There are many reasons behind using nicknames for correspondence with
foreigners, it's not necessarily to make your company look more global than it
really is (even though yes, that's also one reason). It isn't specific to
Korean, but a lot of "first names" (typically the middle and last character)
are not clearly associated to a gender, especially to foreign ears. Also, the
romanization of Korean is a pretty confusing mess overall, unlike with
Japanese for instance. There have been several systems in use, and names show
the biggest inconsistencies (for example Lee, I, Yi, Ri, Rhee are all the same
family name). Does "Yuna" mean Yeona like the skater or Yoona like the K-pop
singer? You cannot know.

Now back to the policy discussed, I left Korea before it got introduced at my
company, but I always found stupid to _force_ people to pick another name.
Lots of Koreans really don't want to. I called my VP by his real first name
and he was fine with it.

~~~
Nexxxeh
>First, not all western names are "English", come on.

Indeed. But the thing that raised by hackles was:

>“Using an English name even though you are not American is a little bit
strange. Your name is from your own mother and father.”

America is not where English comes from. I mean I understand that America's
influence on South Korea probably can't be overstated.

But that sentence just pushed a button I wasn't aware I had, not least because
while I'm British, I'm not English.

~~~
Waterluvian
Apologies but I'm trying to learn the hierarchy so I stop insulting my British
colleagues.

Being British but not English would make you... Welsh or Irish?

Edit: no! Welsh or Scottish. Ireland is part of the British Isles but but
Great Britain.

~~~
signal11
> Being British but not English would make you...

Or an ethnic minority, for example Mo Farah or Archie Panjabi. As far as I can
make out, minorities preferred "British-x" (e.g. British-Asian) as a label
rather than English even if they were born in England, although there have
been calls for that to change [1].

[1]
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jun/23/englis...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jun/23/english-
british-national-identity-ethnic-minorities)

~~~
Waterluvian
Interesting​. I never even considered those as ethnicities. Just places you
live and what your demonym is.

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tim333
There's an interesting discussion by Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers of how
Korean culture of this type may have caused the crash of Korean Air Flight
801.

>Korean Air had more plane crashes than almost any other airline in the world
for a period at the end of the 1990s. When we think of airline crashes, we
think, Oh, they must have had old planes. They must have had badly trained
pilots. No. What they were struggling with was a cultural legacy, that Korean
culture is hierarchical. You are obliged to be deferential toward your elders
and superiors in a way that would be unimaginable in the U.S.

>But Boeing and Airbus design modern, complex airplanes to be flown by two
equals. That works beautifully in low-power-distance cultures [like the U.S.,
where hierarchies aren't as relevant]. But in cultures that have high power
distance, it's very difficult.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/malcolm...](https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/malcolm-
gladwells-cockpit-culture-theory-everywhere-after-asiana-crash/313442/)

~~~
Sharlin
The Western aviation culture also had to learn the lesson the hard way. The
lessening of (perceived or actual) power differentials and the ability to
raise concerns at any time are a part of the new communication paradigm
developed in the 70s and 80s after a few disastrous accidents, now commonly
known as Crew resource management [1]. Captain Haynes had the following to say
after the United Airlines Flight 232 accident: [2]

 _...the preparation that paid off for the crew was something ... called
Cockpit Resource Management.... Up until 1980, we kind of worked on the
concept that the captain was THE authority on the aircraft. What he said,
goes. And we lost a few airplanes because of that. Sometimes the captain isn
't as smart as we thought he was. And we would listen to him, and do what he
said, and we wouldn't know what he's talking about._

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232)

~~~
EliRivers
As an aside, I find that while many (all, I'd hope!) professional pilots
recognise their own limits and the necessity of modern CRM, many non-pilots
still like to hold on to a romantic notion that on a flight, the captain is as
god, even ascribing the captain powers well beyond the job.

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yen223
This is _one_ Korean company that does it.

