Korean Family Titles Beyond Mom and Dad

Aunts and Uncles: It Depends on the Side of the Family

Korean splits "aunt" and "uncle" by side of the family: 이모 and 외삼촌 come from the mother's side, while 고모 and plain 삼촌 come from the father's.

To see every one of these titles on a single page, download our free Korean family tree chart.

See also: Why Do Koreans Say 우리 (Our)?

사촌: Cousins

사촌 (sachon) means "cousin" generally — English stops there, but Korean can get more specific with 외사촌 (maternal-side cousin) when the distinction matters. In everyday conversation, plain 사촌 is usually enough.

What you actually call a cousin depends on age, the same way it does with siblings. A cousin your age or younger is simply called by name. An older cousin gets the sibling words — 형, 누나, 오빠 or 언니 depending on your gender and theirs — often with the name in front: 민지 언니, 준호 형. (For how those four words work, see 형.)

When you talk about a cousin to someone else, you put 사촌 in front of the sibling word: 사촌 형, 사촌 누나, 사촌 언니, 사촌 동생 (often written without the space). The more specific 이종사촌 or 고종사촌 mostly comes up when you introduce a cousin — see 사촌 for the full set.

Why the Extra Precision?

This mirrors the logic behind 형/오빠/누나/언니 and the Korean age system: Korean grammar and vocabulary consistently encode exactly WHO someone is in relation to you and the family structure, rather than flattening relationships into a few generic categories the way English does.

The same age-shift applies to your own parents: children say 엄마 and 아빠, and many people switch to 어머니 and 아버지 as adults — though plenty keep saying 엄마 and 아빠 their whole lives. More on that on the 엄마 and 아빠 page.

When There Are Multiple Uncles: Ranking by Birth Order

Father's brothers get even more specific than plain 삼촌 once there's more than one. An uncle older than your father is 큰아버지 ("big father"), and one younger than your father is 작은아버지 ("small father") — both distinct from 삼촌, which is used more loosely, especially for an unmarried younger uncle. At home, most people actually say the warmer 큰아빠 (keunappa) and 작은아빠 (jageunappa), and call their wives 큰엄마 (keuneomma) and 작은엄마 (jageuneomma). The same 큰-/작은- pattern shows up for aunts on the father's side too: 큰고모 (father's oldest sister) versus 작은고모 (a younger one), when a family needs to tell multiple 고모 apart.

Aunts, Uncles and Their Spouses: What Koreans Actually Say

Once there's more than one aunt or uncle of the same kind, Koreans rank them by birth order: 첫째 (first), 둘째 (second), 셋째 (third). The eldest is often called 큰- ("big") instead of 첫째, and the youngest adult of the set is 막내 ("the youngest"). So three 이모 become 첫째 이모 or 큰이모, 둘째 이모, and 셋째 이모 or 막내 이모.

Korean also has formal kinship terms — the kind you'd see on a family chart — that almost nobody says out loud. Here's the gap between the chart and the dinner table:

You'll also hear plain 삼촌 for a father's brother. It literally means "three 촌" — 촌 is the unit Korean uses to count degrees of kinship, and an uncle is three steps away from you. 삼촌 is the everyday word for an unmarried uncle, and it doesn't sound odd to keep calling him 삼촌 after he marries — though once he's married, 큰아빠 or 작은아빠 is more common. Ranked, it becomes 큰 삼촌, 둘째 삼촌, 작은 삼촌, 막내 삼촌. On the mother's side, her brothers take the 외- prefix — 외삼촌, 외숙모 — while her sisters are simply 이모.

Relatives are also told apart by where they live. 부산 이모 is the aunt who lives in Busan — and it doesn't have to be a city: people use a district or neighborhood name, or a well-known place nearby.

To see all of these on one page, print the Korean family tree chart; titles that change after marriage are on the in-laws chart.

Casual, Non-Family Use of 이모/삼촌

Just like 언니 gets used for shop staff, 이모 and 삼촌 extend to non-family adults too — restaurant workers, family friends, neighborhood shopkeepers. Calling a restaurant owner 이모 is warm and completely normal, not a literal family claim.

Common Mistakes

Related Knowledge

• Why Do Koreans Say 우리 (Our)?
• 엄마/아빠 — mom and dad in Korean
• 언니 (eonni) — what it means