Soon-ja

Soon-ja, also spelled Sun-ja, is a Korean female given name. According to South Korean government data it was the seventh-most popular name for baby girls in 1940.^[1] The same characters correspond to a number of Japanese female given names, including the on'yomi reading Junko and the kun'yomi readings Ayako, Masako, Michiko, Nobuko, and Yoshiko.^[2] It 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.^[3] By 1950 there were no names ending in "ja" in the top ten.^[4]

Soon-ja
Hangul	순자
Hanja	順子
Revised Romanization	Sun-ja
McCune–Reischauer	Sunja

People with this name include:

• Soon Ja Du (born 1940), South Korean-born American convenience store owner
• Jeong Sun-ja (born 1947), South Korean diver
• Kim Sun-ja (athlete) (born 1966), South Korean sprinter
• Lee Soon-ja (born 1939), South Korean former first lady, wife of Chun Doo-hwan
• Lee Sun-ja (born 1978), South Korean sprint canoer
• Park Soon-ja (born 1966), South Korean former field hockey player

See also

• List of Korean given names