Understanding Korean Names

On the occasion of proofing Korean names and terminology in the forthcoming Routledge Companion to Performance-Related Concepts in Non-European Languages (edited by Erika Fischer-Lichte, Torsten Jost & Astrid Schenka), a huge tome with keywords in six languages and concepts from three continents (forthcoming later this year), I thought a guide on Korean names might be helpful for those who do not speak or read Korean (and don’t plan to learn) yet want to deal with Korean artists, scholars, or others in a respectful and informed way.

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Korean names are not overly complicated but can come in various forms when romanized, (i.e. rendered in latin letters). The first step to get a grip of them is to distinguish between given and family name, though.

First, there are not that many Korean family names. For someone named, for instance, Kim Dae-jung 김대중 (or Dae-jung Kim, for that matter), Lee Chang-dong 이창동, or Park Chan-wook 박찬욱, it is obvious that Kim, Lee, and Park – the most common surnames – are the respective family names. These three family names alone cover about 50% of all South Koreans and appear thus frequently in literature, politics, media, and other contexts. Their romanized spelling might slightly vary, however, For instance, Lee 이, which according to official romanization rules would be I, could also be written “Yi”, as which it appears more often in historical texts, “Rhee”, as in Syngman Rhee 이승만, “Yee”, as in Yee Sookyung 이수경, or in other ways. Park 박 (officially: Bak) is by far the most common spelling but also appears occasionally as “Pak” or “Bac”. Kim 김 (officially: Gim) is rarely spelled otherwise.

This word cloud shows the 47 most frequent names, find a list of them below:

Second, most Korean given names contain three syllables, one for the family name (almost all of which are monosyllabic) and two for the given name. In many cases, the given name is written as one word, especially in cases where one syllable consists of one letter only (like Lee Ufan, 이우환), or both syllables are linked by a hyphen (e.g. Bong Joon-ho 봉준호). Very rarely, in-word capitalization is used to distinguish the two syllables, as in JeongMee Yoon 윤정미, which is often overseen, especially when the whole name is capitalized. And Kimsooja 김수자 is, to my knowledge a quite unique case.) Sometimes, all three syllables are written separately, in which case the family could be the first or the last syllable, because…

Third, while the usual Korean name order (like in many countries) is family before given name (which, consequently, isn’t really a “first name”), many people use the “Western” order (as seen in some examples above). Identifying the family name is usually no problem, though, because besides Kim, Lee, and Park, there are only a relatively small number of more or less frequent ones. The following family names, less than 50 that together represent more than 100,000 individuals (of about 50 Mio. South Koreans in total) each, are listed in order of frequency, according to a 2015 census by KOSIS, the Korean Statistical Information Service. I used the most common spelling, according to my experience, here, with the official romanization, if different, added in parentheses:

1. 김 Kim [Gim]
2. 이 Lee [I / Yi]
3. 박 Park [Bak]
4. 최 Choi [Choe]
5. 정 Jung [Jeong]
6. 강 Kang [Gang]
7. 조 Cho [Jo]
8. 윤 Yoon [Yun]
9. 장 Jang
10. 임 Lim [Im]
11. 한 Han
12. 오 Oh [O]
13. 서 Suh [Seo]
14. 신 Shin [Sin]
15. 권 Kwon [Gwon]
16. 황 Hwang
17. 안 Ahn [An]
18. 송 Song
19. 전 Jun [Jeon]
20. 홍 Hong
21. 유 Yoo [Yu]
22. 고 Koh [Go]
23. 문 Moon [Mun]
24. 양 Yang
25. 손 Son
26. 배 Bae
27. 백 Baek
28. 허 Hur [Heo]
29. 남 Nam
30. 심 Shim [Sim]
31. 노 Roh [No]
32. 하 Ha
33. 곽 Kwak [Gwak]
34. 성 Sung [Seong]
35. 차 Cha
36. 주 Choo [Ju]
37. 우 Woo [U]
38. 구 Kooh [Gu]
39. 민 Min
40. 류 Ryu
41. 나 Na
42. 진 Chin [Jin]
43. 지 Chi [Ji]
44. 엄 Um [Eom]
45. 채 Chae
46. 원 Won
47. 천 Chun [Cheon]

Game: Taking turns naming Korean politicians (or classical musicians, or whatever category), adding up the rank numbers as score – whoever gets the most points wins (any name not on the list can be considered worth 48 points).

So name order shouldn’t be an obstacle, though sometimes things get tricky. The novelist Han Kang 한강, for instance, has a one-syllable given name (Kang) that is also a common family name. Often when browsing book stores in Germany, I find her novels under “K”, when it should be “H”. Philosopher Byung-chul Han 한병철 (who shares his family name with Han Kang, though both are probably not related), in contrast, can be found under “H” (in the philosophy section) – I don’t remember any misplacements. Even a large German weekly, in a feature that addressed authors of world literature by their given name (already highly questionable), referred to her as “Han”, which is odd in more than one way.

https://x.com/JanCreutzenberg/status/1220487502076747779?s=20

But in most cases figuring out the family name is no big deal. Pronunciation can sometimes be difficult, though, especially if the romanization is idiosyncratic. Consider Nam June Paik 백남준, the “father of video art”, for instance: The first word, “Nam”, could theoretically be his family name, but in fact it is “Paik”, or rather “Baek”, following standard romanization (Nam and Baek are almost similar in frequency, but June Baek, or Jun-baek, sounds less probable as a first name.) I won’t go into detail on pronunciation here, but “Nam June” is pronounced quite straightforward, like “nun” with an “m” and like the sixth month. Paik, however, isn’t like “pike” (as in, say, “turnpike”), but rather “back” (like in “I’ll be back).

Two more possible fall traps: First, it can be tricky or even impossible to deduce the gender of a person from their name. Some syllables are, depending on the underlying Chinese character, considered more male (like “yong 용 龍”, which can mean “dragon”, for instance) or more female (e.g. those that end in “-suk 숙 淑”, meaning “pure”, “good”) – I didn’t mention it yet but most names are based (and can be written) in Chinese characters, which contain a mostly allegorical meaning. In many cases it’s best to check or, in a mail correspondence, use the full name.

Also, in Korea, people don’t change their family names when marrying. The children get the father’s name; even though there’s a small trend towards acknowledging the maternal line, too, which results in double family names, still rarely seen, though. That means that the husband of a “Mrs. Kim” is almost never a “Mr. Kim”.

All in all, even though Korean names and how they are written in Latin letters (and pronounced, more in a later post) might seem complicated at times, most cases are not. Unfamiliarity or some odd conventions should be no obstacle to address or write about people in fitting ways. I hope this short guide is of some help towards this goal.

— n.t.