Young-ja

Young-ja, also spelled Yeong-ja, is a Korean given name. According to South Korean government data, it was the most popular name for baby girls born in 1940.^[1]

Young-ja
Hangul	영자
RR	Yeongja
MR	Yŏngja

The syllable "ja" is generally written using a hanja meaning "child" (子). In Japan, where this character is read ko, it was originally used as suffix for the names of girls in the aristocracy. The practice of adding -ko to girls' names spread to the lower classes following the 1868 Meiji Restoration.^[2] Names containing this character, such as Soon-ja and Jeong-ja, became popular when Korea was under Japanese rule from 1910 to 1945, but declined in popularity afterwards.^[3] By 1950 there were no names ending in "ja" in the top ten.^[4]

People

People with this name include:

• Young-ja Lee (composer) (born 1936), South Korean music educator and composer
• Jung Hye-sun (born Jung Young-ja, 1942), South Korean actress
• Kim Young-ja (born 1949), South Korean volleyball player
• Young-ja Cho (born 1951), South Korean sculptor
• Lee Young-ja (handballer) (born 1964), South Korean team handball player and Olympic medalist
• Yang Young-ja (born 1964), South Korean table tennis player
• Lee Young-ja (comedian) (born 1968), South Korean comedian
• Park Yeong-ja (born 1975), South Korean rower
• Chang Yeong-ja, South Korean financier, one of the principals in the 1982 Lee–Chang scandal

Fictional characters with this name include:

• Yeong-ja, the titular character of the 1975 South Korean film Yeong-ja's Heydays^[5]

See also

• List of Korean given names