Choi (Korean name)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Choi
Hangul 최
Hanja 崔
Revised Romanization Choe
McCune-Reischauer Ch'oe
This article is about the Korean people is the name Choi. For the Chinese surname Cai (蔡), with the Cantonese romanisation of Choi, see Cai (surname).

Choi, sometimes spelled Choe or Choy, is a common Korean family name. The 2000 South Korean census counted 2,169,704 people bearing this name. The vowel sound is similar to the German ö [œ], but in English-speaking countries, most Chois prefer the anglicized form that rhymes with soy. Ethnic Koreans in the former USSR prefer the form Tsoi (Tsoy) (Russian Цой), e.g. Russian rock artist Viktor Tsoi.

Contents

[edit] Clans

There are roughly 160 clans of Chois. Most of these are quite small. The largest by far is the Gyeongju Choi clan, with a 2000 South Korean population of 976,820. The Gyeongju Choe claim the Silla scholar Choe Chi-won as their founder.

[edit] Etymology

The character Choi (崔) is derived from the combination of 2 ancient Chinese characters:

山 symbolizes the mountains.
隹 is a phonetic component pronounced 추 (chu) in Korean and zhui in Mandarin. 崔 is pronounced cui in Mandarin. The pronunciations of the two characters are even more similar in Cantonese, where 隹 is pronounced jeui and 崔 is pronounced cheui.

Choi means a governor, who oversees the land and the mountain. The surname Choi also means high, superior, lofty or towering.

It should not be confused with "choi" in the pak choi food, which is of Chinese origin and of a different meaning.

[edit] List of people with the surname Choi


[edit] Fictional

[edit] See also

[edit] External links