Kim Da-young (김다영)

A personal name formed by combining the Korean surname 'Kim' and the given name 'Da-young', with namesakes active in various fields.

Kim Da-young (김다영)

Overview

Kim Da-young is a Korean personal name formed by combining 'Kim (金)', the most common surname in Korea, and the given name 'Da-young'. 'Da-young' is a name that has been steadily used among people born since the 1990s; because both Sino-Korean character (hanja) notation and native Korean interpretations are possible, its meaning is not singular. This document organizes the composition and distribution of the name itself, as well as namesakes active in various fields.

Main Content

Composition and Meaning of the Name

'Kim' is the surname with the highest share of the population in Korea, and it is known to be used by about 20 percent of the total population. The surname is typically written with the hanja 金 (gold/metal), and depending on bon-gwan (clan seat), it is divided into dozens of bon-gwan such as Gimhae, Gyeongju, and Andong.

The given name 'Da-young' is a two-syllable name composed of 'Da' and 'young'. When written in hanja, various combinations such as '多英', '多盈', '多榮', and '茶英' are possible, and each combination has a different meaning. When interpreted in native Korean without using hanja, 'da' (all/to complete) and 'yeong' (long/lasting) are combined to give the positive meaning of 'plentifully for a long time'. Because the meaning changes according to the notation method in this way, even people with the same name may be distinguished as different individuals if their hanja notations differ.

Usage Distribution and Characteristics

Names of the 'Da-young' type appear especially frequently among women born from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. They appear to have been used together during the period when names beginning with 'Da' (Da-eun, Da-hyeon, Da-in, Da-hye, etc.) formed a fashionable group. Since the 2010s, as the diversity of names registered at birth has increased, the concentration of specific names has been on a declining trend.

Due to the nature of the name, people named Kim Da-young exist in a very wide range of fields, including entertainment and broadcasting, sports, academia, the arts, and ordinary corporations. In Wikipedia-style biographical entries, Kim Da-young is usually organized as a 'namesake article', listing and distinguishing individuals based on their occupation and field of activity.

How Namesakes Are Distinguished

For names with many namesakes, they are distinguished in the following ways.

Occupation or field of activity (actor, singer, athlete, researcher, etc.)
Affiliated organization or team
Period of activity (generation)
Year or place of birth
Difference in hanja notation

For example, Kim Da-young in sports and Kim Da-young in broadcasting are distinguished by affiliation and period of activity; when there are multiple people in the same field, their birth year or team is listed alongside to reduce confusion.

Points to Note When Searching and Verifying Information

When there are several people with the same name, information in search results is easily mixed. When checking information about a specific person, it is advisable to also check near-primary sources such as the affiliated organization's official profile, work credits, and competition records. In particular, documents such as Namu Wiki and Wikipedia entries may differ depending on the time of editing, so cross-verification is necessary.

Recent Trends

As of 2024–2025, several changes have appeared in the way personal-name information is distributed.

First, as personal information spreads across fandom-centered wikis, social media, and video platforms, there is a tendency for the role of namesake articles to shift from 'introducing a single person' to 'providing an identifier guide'. This is also linked to the spread of search engines automatically grouping and displaying namesakes.

Second, with the global spread of K-content, cases in which Romanized spellings of Korean names (e.g., Kim Da-young, Kim Daeyoung) are searched in foreign-language regions have increased. In this process, a problem also arises in which the same person is searched under different spellings because Romanization differs from person to person.

Third, as awareness of personal information protection increases, documents based on the real names of non-public figures are being deleted or reduced. Whether someone is a public figure, their publicly disclosed activity history, and the existence of reliable sources are becoming major criteria for keeping personal-name articles.

Fourth, naming trends themselves are changing. In the 2020s, even among two-syllable names, the tendency to prefer native Korean and indigenous-word types over Sino-Korean words has grown stronger, and this acts as a factor lowering the frequency of new use of previously popular names such as 'Da-young'.