Nam Family History

Korean: written 남 in Chinese characters 南 meaning ‘south’. This is the only Chinese character for the surname Nam. As many as fifty-seven Nam clans are mentioned in the records but of these only four can be positively documented.

The founding ancestor of the Nam clans was a man named Kim Ch’ung. He was an emissary from Tang China on his way to Japan when a southerly storm blew his ship northward and forced it aground in Shilla Korea. The Shilla king Kyŏngdŏk (742–65) noting that he had come from the south renamed the emissary Nam in 755.

Compare Nahm Chinese: Cantonese form of the surname 南 see Nan Chinese: Cantonese Teochew Hokkien and Taiwanese form of the surname 藍 see Lan.

Vietnamese: probably representing the Chinese surname 南 meaning ‘south’ see Nan 1 and the name in 2 above.