Korean History › Japanese rule › Japanese colonial rule of Korea
Name-change policy (soshi-kaimei)
1940· Event· Society, economy & people
Well documentedSolid records, physical evidence or scientific consensus.
A 1940 colonial order pressing Koreans to adopt Japanese-style family names, part of wartime assimilation.
See it on the Korean History map →What happened
Under Changssi Gaemyeong (창씨개명), effective February 11, 1940, every Korean household had to have a household name (ssi) in the Japanese manner, and given names could also be changed. Submitting a new Japanese-style name was formally voluntary, but schools, offices and police applied heavy pressure; refusing families faced obstacles such as children turned away from school and delayed rations. Within six months about 80 percent of households had registered new names. Those who did not had their Korean surname entered as the household name.
Why it matters
It struck at Korean family lineage, central to Confucian identity, and remains one of the most resented symbols of forced assimilation.
How we know
Government-General ordinances and registration statistics, household registers, newspapers of 1940, and memoirs and testimony of people pressed to comply.
Still debated
How coercive it was in practice is argued: some Japanese writers stress its formal voluntariness; Korean historians point to systematic pressure and penalties.
Connections (2)
▸Name-change policy (soshi-kaimei) was an assimilation policy of Japanese colonial rule of KoreaWell documented
The connection
Name changing was part of Governor-General Minami Jiro's naisen ittai ('Japan and Korea as one body') campaign, alongside the Pledge of Imperial Subjects, compulsory Shinto shrine visits and the removal of Korean from schools. It aimed to make Koreans indistinguishable imperial subjects, ready for wartime service and later conscription.
When and how
Announced in November 1939 by revising Korea's civil-affairs law; in effect across Korea from February 11, 1940.
How we know
The revised civil-affairs ordinance, Government-General campaign materials, and registration statistics reported in 1940 newspapers.
Debates and open questions
Some Japanese officials opposed it for blurring the line between Japanese and Koreans, suggesting the assimilation goal itself was contested.
▸Name-change policy (soshi-kaimei) was reversed after Liberation of Korea (Gwangbokjeol)Well documented
The connection
Once Japan surrendered, Korean families dropped their imposed Japanese names. The US military government's Korean Name Restoration Order of October 1946 formally voided the colonial registrations, restoring Korean names in household records across the south.
When and how
Southern Korea, October 23, 1946, under the US military government; the north also abandoned the names after 1945.
How we know
The text of the Name Restoration Order and household registers that record the restored surnames.
Debates and open questions
How many people quietly kept Japanese names, for example Koreans who stayed in Japan and used them in daily life, is uncertain and hard to measure.