Chae

Family name origins & meanings

• Korean : there is only one Chinese character for the Chae surname. There are two Chae clans: the Ch’ilw{ou}n and the {Uu}is{ou}ng, the Ch’ilw{ou}n clan being the larger. Some records indicate that the Chae clans descended from another clan with the two-character surname of Chaegal. According to the Chaegal clan genealogy, the founding ancestor of the Korean Chaegal clan was a twentieth-generation descendant of a Chinese government official, Chae Kal-lyang, a character who plays an important role in the epic tale of the Three Kingdoms. This descendant migrated to the Shilla kingdom sometime in the early 9th century. He and his descendants lived in the southern tip of the Korean peninsula for four centuries. Then, during the reign of Kory{ou} king Kojong (1213–1259), two brothers split the Chaegal surname. One brother, Y{ou}ng, took the surname Kal and the other brother, Hong, took the surname Chae. Afterward, the surnames Chaegal and Kal became all but extinct, with only a few families surviving into the 20th century. In Korea, most members of the Chae clan live in southern Ky{ou}ngsang and Ch{ou}lla provinces.