hello,
My name last name is Chang or 장 like the singer 장나라 or like my twin brother 장동건 heheh anyways im a member of my school's kendo team and we are making our name tags. we were told to have our names in hanja ready... I asked some of my Chinese friends to translate my name in Chinese Calligraphy and they told me that there are multiple ways to write the name Chang/장... I go to school in Boston and my parents live in Los Angeles so its is basically impossible to ask them so would anyone happen to know how to write the name Chang/장 in Hanja? to tell you a little about myself my parents are from Incheon haha hope this helps! thank you and ill be counting on your responses! :)

Hang on a while-even if we get a couple samples we will have to get someone with the Chinese characters on his computer to send them! Since the Chinese characters are often pronounced differently in Korean than in Chinese, you may want to look up an elder Korean in your town to be sure. Some larger Korean Dictionaries have both Korean and Chinese names, if you can get to a big library, that would work, or a calligraphy shop.

There are four versions of the name Chang in Korea. However, one of them is very common, and the other three are not common at all. So you are probably this kind of Chang:



Here is the population data from the 2000 census regarding all the Chang-shi names:

장 (張) 919,339
장 (蔣) 17,708
장 (章) 5,562
장 (莊) 648

wow... thank you very much for the prompt and through response, it was just the answer I was looking for... although I feel I am one of the million "張's" out there, now I will be able to confirm the description of the calligraphy with ease now through the phone... thank you once again for your help

When describing Chinese characters as they relate to the Korean language, each one has a descriptor (called a 뜻 in Korean).

The 뜻 for the character 張 is from the word 베풀다. When using a 뜻, you almost always end it with a "ㄹ" character, so in the case of the 뜻 for 張, you would describe it as "베풀 장 자."

So you can ask your parents, "Is the character representing our family name 베풀 장 자?" and they will know exactly what you are asking.

And for the sake of reference, the word 베풀다 means: give, hold, or throw (a party); give, bestow, or grant aid (to the poor); bestow a favor (on someone).

my my, I am impressed by your knowledge... are you some kind of Korean linguistics major? btw it was for a Kendo tournament which I went to today (the 2008 Harvard Shoryuhai Intercollegiate Tournament) and luckily my friend got me the right name tag! hahaha thanks again for all your help