[Extraordinary Attorney Woo] How can a lucky charm be a clever fool?

내 이름은 '꽃부리 영'에 '복 우'
꽃처럼 예쁜 복덩이란 뜻입니다
하지만 '영리할 영'에 '어리석을 우'가 더 어울리지 않았을까요?
My name is Flower-like-young and Luck-woo
It means a lucky charm as pretty as flowers
But perhaps Clever-young and Foolish-woo would've been a better fit.

 

태어나서 지금가지 본 책을 전부 기억하지만
회전문도 못 지나가는 우영우
영리하고 어리석은 우영우
Woo Young-woo, who remembers every single book she's read since birth,
but can't even go through a revolving door.
Clever and foolish Woo Young-woo

Making a Name in Korea

In the scene, the main character, Woo Young-woo, explains the meaning of her name; it's a lucky charm as pretty as flowers. Great and awesome. But 'Flower-like-young'? 'Luck-woo'? What are they? If you want to understand that part, you need to learn how parents make a name for their children in Korea.

The traditional way to make a name is to use Chinese characters. Though each word is borrowed from Chinese characters, I'm not sure t
he meaning is exactly the same as what the Chinese are using. As far as I know, some Chinese characters used in Korea become localized with different meanings and sounds. But the point is that by using Chinese characters (ideogram) people want to make a name containing good meaning as well as wish a great future for the name owner, which is much more difficult with Korean (phonogram).

  

So, which one is right? Lucky Charm or Clever Fool?

Let's look into Young-woo's name. She explains her name is Flower-like-young and Luck-woo: 英 and 祐. The point, here, is Flower-like-young (英) consists of a meaning part and a sound part; "flower-like" is the meaning of the word, 英, and "young" is only for the sound to read it. Also, Luck-woo (祐) is the same as broken into the meaning part of "luck" and the sound part of "woo". That's why her name, 英祐, is read "young woo" and means "a lucky charm as pretty as flowers".

Then, what about Clever Fool? How that meaning can be created? In fact, one of the features of phonograms is a word with the same sound can hold various meanings. Also, let's take an example of Young-woo's case. 

She mocks herself as saying "Clever-young and Foolish-woo would've been a better fit". You might think she makes it up by herself, but it's not: clever-young (伶) and foolish-woo (愚). As you can see, 伶 sounds the same with 英 as "young" and 愚 with 祐 as "woo". That means her name, 英祐, has the same sound with 伶愚 as young-woo, but the meaning is totally different. 

You might think it's the limit of Korean, but I don't think so. As different meanings can be put into a same sound, interesting situations can be created or different points of view could be open sometimes. I hope I can introduce such cases to you some day. :)