Hanja and meaning
The name Chun-ja is generally written with hanja meaning "spring child" ( 春 子 ; 봄 춘;bom chun; 아들 자;adeul ja), though there are three other characters with the reading "chun" on the South Korean government's list of hanja which may be registered for use in given names. [1] Those same characters may also be read as the Japanese feminine given name Haruko. [2]
Hanja is the Korean name for Chinese characters. More specifically, it refers to those Chinese characters borrowed from Chinese and incorporated into the Korean language with Korean pronunciation. Hanja-mal or Hanja-eo refers to words that can be written with Hanja, and hanmun refers to Classical Chinese writing, although "Hanja" is sometimes used loosely to encompass these other concepts. Because Hanja never underwent major reform, they are almost entirely identical to traditional Chinese and kyūjitai characters, though the stroke orders for some characters are slightly different. For example, the characters 教 and 研 are written as 敎 and 硏. Only a small number of Hanja characters are modified or unique to Korean. By contrast, many of the Chinese characters currently in use in Japan and Mainland China have been simplified, and contain fewer strokes than the corresponding Hanja characters.
Japanese names in modern times usually consist of a family name (surname), followed by a given name. More than one given name is not generally used. Japanese names are usually written in kanji, which are characters usually Chinese in origin but Japanese in pronunciation. The kanji for a name may have a variety of possible Japanese pronunciations, hence parents might use hiragana or katakana when giving a birth name to their newborn child. Names written in hiragana or katakana are phonetic renderings, and so lack the visual meaning of names expressed in the logographic kanji.
Haruko is a unisex Japanese given name. Its most common translation is "spring child", though other kanji provide different meanings. Notable people with the name include:
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Chun-ja is one of a number of Japanese-style names ending in "ja", like Young-ja and Jeong-ja, that were popular when Korea was under Japanese rule, but declined in popularity afterwards. According to South Korean government data, Chun-ja was the fourth-most popular name for newborn girls in 1945, with nine out of the top ten names for girls that year ending in "ja". [3] However, by 1950 there were no names ending in "ja" in the top ten. [4]
Young-ja, also spelled Yeong-ja, is a Korean feminine given name. According to South Korean government data, it was the most popular name for baby girls born in 1940. Its meaning depends on the hanja used to write it.
Jeong-ja, also spelled Jung-ja, Jong-ja, or Chung-ja, is a Korean feminine given name. The meaning differs based on the hanja used to write each syllable of the name.
Korea under Japanese rule began with the end of the short-lived Korean Empire in 1910 and ended at the conclusion of World War II in 1945. Japanese rule over Korea was the outcome of a process that began with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876, whereby a complex coalition of the Meiji government, military, and business officials sought to integrate Korea both politically and economically into the Empire of Japan. A major stepping-stone towards the Japanese occupation of Korea was the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1905, in which the then-Korean Empire was declared a protectorate of Japan. The annexation of Korea by Japan was set up in the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910, which was never actually signed by the Korean Regent, Gojong.
