Ja 자 — Korean last name
Is Ja a Korean last name?
Yes. Ja (Hangul: 자, Hanja: 慈) is a Korean family name recorded in the 2015 South Korean census with 75 holders, making it the #154 most common of the 191 surnames counted. Roughly one in every 662,742 South Koreans is a Ja. It is one of the rarest surnames in Korea — fewer than a thousand people carry it.
How to write Ja in Korean
In Hangul, Ja is written 자. Its Hanja (Chinese character) is 慈. Unlike many Korean surnames, Ja has a single Hanja form, so every Ja in Korea shares the same character.
What does Ja mean?
The character 慈 means kind, loving, compassionate. As with most Korean surnames, the meaning comes from the Chinese character rather than from the Korean sound, so it says something about how the name was first written down (often a place, a virtue, an object or a Chinese dynasty) rather than describing the family. Koreans rarely think about the literal meaning of a surname in daily life, but it matters for genealogy and for choosing given names that pair well with it.
How common is Ja?
Ja is ultra-rare Korean surname. Just above it in the rankings is Seop (75) and just below it is Hu (74). For comparison, Kim, the most common surname, has 10,689,967 holders. All figures come from Statistics Korea's 2015 Population and Housing Census, which only counts surnames held by five or more people.
Spellings and romanization
Ja is the spelling most Korean families use on passports and in English. The official Revised Romanization (used by the South Korean government since 2000) is Ja, and the older McCune–Reischauer system gives Cha. The variety exists because Korean passport rules let each family choose its own romanization, so spellings drifted over generations of emigration; in Korean, every one of these is the same 자.
How to pronounce Ja
Ja (자) is pronounced roughly as the Revised Romanization "Ja" reads, with even stress on each syllable — Korean does not stress one syllable over another the way English does. Vowels are pure and short: "eo" is the "u" in "sun", "eu" is a tight "oo" with unrounded lips, and "ae" rhymes with "day".
Related Korean surnames
Frequently asked questions about Ja
Is Ja a Korean or Chinese last name?
Ja as spelled is Korean (자). The Hanja 慈 is also used as a surname in China and Vietnam, but with different romanizations. The families are not related.
How many people have the last name Ja?
75 people in South Korea had the surname Ja (자) in the 2015 census, or under 0.01% of the population. That makes it the #154 most common Korean surname.
How do you write Ja in Korean?
Ja is written 자 in Hangul. In Hanja it is 慈.
What does the Korean last name Ja mean?
The Hanja 慈 means "kind, loving, compassionate". Korean surname meanings come from the Chinese character the name is written with, not from the Korean sound.
Is Ja a rare Korean last name?
Yes. With 75 holders it ranks #154 of 191 — well outside the common surnames. See our list of rare Korean last names for others like it.
Source: Statistics Korea (KOSIS), 2015 Population and Housing Census, surnames by Hangul with five or more holders (total population 49,705,663). Hanja meanings from standard Hanja dictionaries. Check another surname.