Family name origins & meanings
- Korean (O) : historically, there were two Chinese characters for the O surname, but by the late Koryŏ period (14th century ad), one of them had disappeared. Some records indicate that there are as many as 210 different clans for the remaining character, but only sixteen can be positively documented. All sixteen of these clans originate from the same ancestor, O Ch’ŏm, who migrated to Korea from China during the reign of Shilla’s King Chijŭng (500–514 ad). Oh is a common surname throughout Korea.
- Japanese : Romanization of Ō ‘king’, the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese surname Wang. It is mostly borne by Japanese of Chinese descent or Chinese long-term residents in Japan.