Many Korean Adoptee adults experiment with changing their names on social media, often to their Romanized Korean name, such as “Jin Hee LEE”.
And, of course, married women often use their married name online. If you are searching for birth family, changing your name on social media can make it almost impossible for searchers to find you — particularly if they only know your Western name at the time of your adoption.
Most (though not all) Korean Adoptees were assigned names by their orphanages or Adoption Agencies. Therefore, using a Romanized Korean name on social media is practically meaningless from a search perspective — unless you are POSITIVE that your Korean name is REAL. Your Korean birth parents are not likely going to know what name you were assigned through the adoption process.
So IF you change your name to a Romanized Korean name on social media — such as “Jin Hee LEE” — please be sure to put in parentheses your Western name also (such as “Jessica Richardson”). You should also consider doing this if you are using a married name. This way, people searching for your original Western name can find you.
I have personally tracked down the biological sibling of a Korean Adoptee whose name had changed (due to marriage). But it was never guaranteed that I would be able to do this!
Also, from the perspective of a Facebook group admin who frequently likes to tag people in helpful posts, I can never remember who has changed their name to what. It’s worse if someone has changed their name to a Hangul name — I am not going to spend the time to hunt down their Korean name. From this perspective, some people will just miss out on certain posts which I can’t tag them in individually.
IF you are a searcher — especially someone who has taken DNA tests and has interest in connecting with DNA matches — please be smart about keeping yourself visible online to searchers.
Good luck!
