‘Kim’ and ‘Park,’ the Jin’gol aristocracy’s representative two last names originated in the Jungdae period of Shilla, and was later followed by another last name ‘Seok(昔).’ The function of these last names was to not only honor the founders who originated such names, but also represent the kinship groups that maintained their existence for a very long time.
The houses that harbored these last names, however, also suffered internal strifes and sometimes lost their self control, which led to fractions and weakening of entire kinship groups in Shilla’s Jungdae period. The last names featured by queens and kings’ mothers, Bidam’s failed insurrection, the Gaya dignitaries joining the Kim house, and the construction of an ‘ancestral shrine[祖廟]’ by kings from the Mu’yeol-line, all show us that the Kim house came to dominate the other houses, and then the direct descendant of the sitting king continued to succeed the throne without any interception from the Kim house, creating its own independent power and sacred authority in the process.
In the Hadae period, the fragmentation and dismantlement of the kinship groups and houses even worsened, to the extent of the last names ‘Kim’ and ‘Park’ no longer being relevant titles to represent the respective groups and instead becoming an indicator to privileged individual statuses. In the meantime, a perspective respecting the bilateral nature of kinship relationships, which demanded for a more comprehensive view of all relationships involving an individual, led to a new trend in which kinship groups and political parties were composed of people whose last names were diverse. Such new situation enabled the reemergence of a king with the last name Park, and the Jin’gol aristocracy considered the Park figure’s succeeding the throne as a legitimate act. The findings of this article should serve as a platform for future studies of the Goryeo period’s last names.