음
surname · Hangul script
Meaning: hmm, umm, uh; indicating thinking or pondering, often with a sense of hesitation
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ɯm/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
음 is a surname written in the Hangul script, with more bearers in South Korea than in any other country.
- KRSouth Korea1 in 9.3K(measured from records)
- USUnited States1 in 207Kas Um
- BRBrazil1 in 295Kas Um
carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than 음 itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- South Korea (measured from records)
- Sources
- 136 (measured from records)
- 1 in 9.3K (inferred from the name graph)
5,604 people, 2015
Highest-authority source
South Korea
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Eum in US United States.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
hmm, umm, uh; indicating thinking or pondering, often with a sense of hesitation.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
음 counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KR South Korea | #110 | 5,604 | 1 in 9.3K | 6.8K | 음 | 120 |
| US United States | — | 1,607as Um | 1 in 207K | 1.8K | Eum | 136 |
| BR Brazil | — | 717as Um | 1 in 295K | 717 | — | — |
| AR Argentina | — | 49as Um | 1 in 928K | 49 | — | — |
| SE Sweden | — | 15as Um | 1 in 680K | 15 | — | 2 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 15as Um | 1 in 560K | 15 | — | 3 |
5,604 people counted by KOSIS 2015 Census — surname population with hanja variants, 2015. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: KOSIS 2015 Census — surname population with hanja variants; KOSIS — 2015 census surnames; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 5 sources across 1 country.
Reference works 2
- KOSIS Korea 2015 census surnames + clans (bon'gwan)
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name 음 mean, and where does it come from?
- hmm, umm, uh; indicating thinking or pondering, often with a sense of hesitation. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce 음?
- A machine transcription gives /ɯm/ (IPA) for Korean.
- In which country does 음 have the most bearers?
- In South Korea, the national register counted about 5.6 thousand people named 음, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled 음.
- Where is 음 most common?
- 음 is densest in South Korea, where the national register counts about 1 in 9.3 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name 음?
- In South Korea, the national register counted 5,604 people named 음 in 2015, about 1 in 9.3 thousand residents.
- How common is 음 compared with other names?
- In South Korea, 음 is the 110th most common surname of 14,133 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about 음?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/%EC%9D%8CThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “음” — the 110th most common surname in South Korea. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.