Khmer names

Khmer names are written with the family name first and the given name second, as in Soth Sopheap, where Soth is the family name. Many family names began as a given name, and given names often have a poetic meaning or name a virtue.

Illustration inspired by a stilt-house veranda in rural Kampong Cham at dusk.

Tradition details
Khmer name	ឈ្មោះខ្មែរ
Also known as	Cambodian names
Practice type	Language practice
Usual occasion	Naming at birth, everyday address and family records
Subjects	Language & Literacy; Family & Intergenerational Life

Name order and address

There is no comma between the two parts. Married women traditionally keep their own family name.

Calling someone by the family name alone is unusual and can be impolite, because that name is the given name of a father, grandfather or other ancestor. With strangers and in formal settings, people use Lok (លោក, Mr.) or Lok Srey (លោកស្រី, Mrs.) before the full name or the given name. Among family and friends, a kinship term chosen by relative age comes before the given name. Common terms are Ta (តា, grandfather), Pu (ពូ, uncle) and Bong (បង, older sibling) for men, Yeay (យាយ, grandmother) and Ming (មីង, aunt) for women.

The anthropologist John Marston describes kinship terms as the ordinary way of addressing someone in Khmer. They always mark relative age: a speaker is either bang (older) or pqoun (ប្អូន, younger) to the person addressed, and titles such as lok and neak srey (អ្នកស្រី) raise the person addressed.

Family names

A French colonial rule of 1910 made family names compulsory and required wives and children to take the name of the head of the household. Outside the educated urban class, the family name long stayed mainly on official papers.

For generations a child's family name was often the father's given name, so a grandfather, a father and a son could each carry a different family name. In a common example, Chea Soth and Than Thravy have a son named Soth Sopheap. Some fathers gave their given name as the family name only to a favorite child, or to a child thought to have been born at an unlucky time, as a comfort to that child. A fixed family name passed down every generation has since become the most common pattern. Cambodia's civil registration rules allow a child's family name to be an ancestral family name, the paternal grandfather's given name or the father's given name.

Many family names come from Chinese, for example Lim and Seng. Common family names include Sok, Chan, Chea, Seang and Kim. The two royal houses, Norodom and Sisowath, descend from King Ang Duong, who reigned from 1841 to 1860.

Given names

Given names come from Khmer, Pali, Sanskrit and Chinese. Parents choose the name of a flower for its color, scent or character, or name a child after a star, the sun or the moon. Girls' names more often speak of beauty and boys' names of virtues, but many names are shared. Dara (star) is usually a boy's name and Chantrea (moon) usually a girl's.

Choosing a name

A name may be chosen by an elder of the family or by a Buddhist monk, often three days to a week after birth. A monk weighs the date, time, season and year of birth, and gives a child born at an unlucky time a name meant to bring merit and good fortune. Parents may also name a child after the day or season of birth, or choose a name that rhymes with a parent's or sibling's name.

Khmer newspapers describe an old rule under which the first letter of a name is chosen from the letters assigned to the day of the week on which the child was born, for good fortune. Versions of the table differ; the newspapers give these letter groups:

Day of birth	First letters
Sunday	អ អា ឥ ឧ ឯ ឱ
Monday	ក ខ គ ឃ ង
Tuesday	ច ឆ ជ ឈ ញ
Wednesday	ដ ឋ ឌ ឍ ណ
Thursday	ប ផ ព ភ ម
Friday	ស ហ ឡ
Saturday	ត ថ ទ ធ ន

A 2019 version adds Wednesday night, with យ រ ល វ, so that every consonant has a day.

A name can also be changed. When a child is often sick, a monk may give a new name thought to bring health and good fortune. Some parents wait years before settling on a permanent name, and an adult going through a run of bad luck may take another name for a time, in the belief that spirits call souls by name. At home, family and friends usually call a person by the given name or by a nickname.

Names under the Khmer Rouge

During Democratic Kampuchea (1975 to 1979), the Khmer Rouge changed how people addressed one another without writing the changes down as rules. Titles that raised the person addressed disappeared, among them lok, neak srey and royal and monastic titles. Mit (មិត្ត, comrade) became the one title in use. Children were reportedly told to call their own parents uncle and aunt. Leaders were known by revolutionary names: Saloth Sar took the name Pol Pot, and the Southwest Zone commander Chhit Choeun was known as Mok. After 1979 the new government still avoided lok and neak srey in public and promoted samamit (សមមិត្ត, comrade); by about 1989 those habits were fading.

Names abroad

In the United States, Australia and New Zealand, forms built on first name and last name confuse the Khmer order, and one person can end up with two records, such as Soth Sopheap and Sopheap Soth. Many Cambodians abroad write their given name first, but not all do.

Spelling in Latin letters

No single standard exists for writing Khmer names in Latin letters, and one name may appear in five or six spellings. French administration shaped most romanization for nearly a century. Libraries and maps follow formal systems, among them the United Nations system, while most Cambodians spell personal names by sound.

See also

• List of Khmer names

References