Heung-min
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Meaning
“Korean given name written with hanja for 'rise, flourish' (heung) and 'clever, quick' (min); famously borne by Son Heung-min, whose surname comes first in Korean order”
The story
Heung-min is a Korean given name written with hanja meaning rise and flourish for heung, and clever and quick for min: a wish for a child who ascends brightly and thinks fast. In Korean the family name comes first, which is why the world knows its most famous bearer as Son Heung-min: the beloved forward who captained Tottenham Hotspur and in 2022 became the first Asian player to win the Premier League Golden Boot as the league's top scorer. His grace and relentless finishing have made him a national icon in South Korea and one of the most popular players in the sport. Korean given names rarely cross into American birth records, and Heung-min follows the pattern, showing just a single flicker in the 2020s: a name that remains, for now, essentially his.
How popular is Heung-min around the world?
Heung-min does not appear in US Social Security baby-name records, which list only names given to at least five babies in a year. There is no popularity curve to chart: a genuinely rare pick.
United States
under 5 a year
Heung-min does not appear in US Social Security baby-name records, which list only names given to at least five babies in a year. There is no popularity curve to chart: a genuinely rare pick.
Births with a Social Security record. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration
Not on the record in Spain, Mexico City, Argentina, Puerto Rico, England and Wales, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland and Poland: those registries withhold small counts, so rare uses may sit below their floors.
Not on the Chile record: nametree keeps spellings that reached 5 registrations in some year, so rarer uses are not shown. Not on the Montevideo record for 1940 to 2011: that registry withholds nothing, so this spelling was not given there in those years. Not on the France record: nametree keeps spellings that reached 20 births in some year, so rarer uses are not shown. Not on the South Australia record for 1944 to 2017: that registry withholds nothing, so this spelling was not given there in those years. Not on the Austria record for 1984 to 2025: Statistik Austria publishes every first name down to a single birth, so this name was not given there in those years (before 2010 the record covers babies with Austrian citizenship only). Not on Norway’s list: Statistics Norway lists only first names carried by 200 or more living people, so rarer names are not shown.
Keep exploring
The Heung-min deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Heung-min truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Heung-min fits with your family’s names and surname.
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