Korean Names

Structure & order

Schematic: [FAMILY] [GIVEN]: surname first, no middle name.

• A modern Korean name is surname + given name with no middle name. In Hangul there is usually no space between surname and given name (e.g. 김민수).
• Total syllables are typically three: a one-syllable family name + a two-syllable given name (e.g. KIM Min-su / 김민수).

Given names

• Most given names have two syllables, though one-, three-, or longer names exist. Since 1993, South Korean law limits given names to a maximum of five syllables.
• Traditionally written in Hanja, with each syllable a chosen Sino-Korean morpheme with a meaning. Over 8,000 Hanja are currently permitted for use in names in South Korea.
• Pure Hangul (native Korean) given names have grown since the late 1970s; their share of South Korean newborns rose from ~3.5% (2008) to ~7.7% (2015).
• Generation name (dollimja, 돌림자): one syllable of the given name is the individual's own, while the other is a generational syllable shared by relatives of the same generation, drawn from the clan genealogy book (jokbo, 족보). In the South the dollimja is traditionally shared across all members of a generation; in North Korea it is shared only among siblings. Many modern parents now drop the generational syllable.
• Gender marking is weak and inconsistent (unlike many Western systems): certain Sino-Korean syllables read as masculine, others feminine, many unisex. Korean's third-person pronouns also lack grammatical gender, which makes automated gender inference from a name hard. (Flagged as a known difficulty rather than a firm rule.)

Family names & patronymics

• The surname pool is extremely concentrated: Kim (김 / 金), Lee (이 / 李), and Park (박 / 朴) together cover nearly half the population; adding Choi (최) and Jung/Chung (정) brings the top five to over half.
• Most surnames are single syllable; a few are disyllabic, e.g. Hwangbo (황보), Namgung (남궁).
• The historical count was ~286 surnames (2000); by 2015 it had risen to ~5,582 distinct surnames, mainly from naturalized citizens.
• Bon-gwan (본관); clan by ancestral seat: each surname is subdivided into clans identified by a bon-gwan, the geographic origin (ancestral hometown) of the clan's founder. Two people surnamed Kim may belong to entirely unrelated clans, e.g. the Gimhae Kim clan vs. the Andong Kim clan; the Jeonju Yi (Lee) clan descends from Yi Han of Jeonju. The Hanja root and bon-gwan together identify lineage, so surname-sharing does not imply kinship.
• Clan exogamy: until 2005, marriage between two people of the same surname and same bon-gwan was legally prohibited; the rule was struck down as unconstitutional and lifted.
• Surnames not inherited by marriage: women keep their own legal surname after marriage (children typically take the father's surname). There are no surname-attached particles as in European naming; lineage is carried by the clan/bon-gwan concept rather than patronymic affixes (contrast Patronymics and Lineage).
• Historical note: surnames were once restricted to nobility; over half the population still lacked one at the 1910 minjeokbu census. Under Japanese occupation the 1939 sōshi-kaimei policy forced Japanese-style names (~84% registered by 1944); the 1946 Name Restoration Order reversed this.

How to address someone

Addressing someone by their given name alone is generally rude, especially toward adults and elders; addressing by family name alone is also incorrect. Names are normally used with a title or honorific suffix.

• -씨 (-ssi): generic, polite "Mr./Ms.", gender-neutral. Attached to the full name or given name among peers of similar age and status; attaching it to the bare surname (e.g. "Kim-ssi") is impolite.
• -님 (-nim): higher honorific than -ssi; attached to titles and to revered/senior people, customers, and the unfamiliar.
• 선생님 (seonsaengnim): literally "teacher" (선생 seonsaeng + -님), used as a respectful general address for teachers and, broadly, for people one respects. Other occupational titles: 교수님 (gyosunim, professor).
• Kinship/age address terms (used even outside family): 오빠 (oppa, older brother, said by a woman), 형 (hyung, older brother, said by a man), 언니 (eonni/unnie, older sister, by a woman), 누나 (nuna/noona, older sister, by a man); 선배(님) (sunbae, senior colleague/mentor) vs 후배 (hubae, junior).

Pitfalls for software

• Family-name-first order, but Western-facing sources frequently re-order to given-first, parsers cannot assume position alone identifies the surname. The tiny, well-known surname stock (Kim/Lee/Park/Choi/Jung) is a stronger signal than position.
• Romanization is legally free and highly variable. The same surname has many spellings:
  • 이 → Lee, Yi, Rhee, Rhii, I, Li, Ri, Leigh, Ree, Ni
  • 박 → Park, Bak, Pak
  • 최 → Choi, Choe, Che, Tsoi
  • 김 → Kim (~99.3% of passports) or Gim (closer to actual pronunciation) This means surname spelling does not uniquely key a clan, and one family may romanize inconsistently. Revised Romanization is the official standard but not enforced for personal names.
• Hanja vs. Hangul: the same Hangul given name can correspond to many different Hanja (with different meanings), and an increasing share of names are pure-Hangul with no Hanja at all, so a Hangul string under-determines meaning and gender.
• Two unrelated people can share an identical romanized full name yet belong to different bon-gwan clans; surname identity ≠ kinship.
• Weak gender signal: many given-name syllables are unisex, so gender guessing from the name is unreliable.
• Disyllabic surnames (Hwangbo, Namgung) break the "surname = 1 syllable, given = 2 syllables" heuristic.
• Address rules trip up outsiders: never call an adult by given name alone or surname alone; default to full-name + 씨 or a title + 님.