배

surname · Hangul script

Meaning: abdomen, belly (of a human or animal)

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

/pɛ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

배 is a surname written in the Hangul script, with more bearers in South Korea than in any other country, where it is the 25th most common surname.

rarermore common
  • KRSouth Korea1 in 129(measured from records)
  • USUnited States1 in 54Kas Bae
  • MOMacao≈1 in 926

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than 배 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)

400,669 people, 2015

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
261 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 129 (inferred from the name graph)

South Korea

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

BaeLatin(measured from records)
배호Hangul(measured from records)

Locally spelled Bae in US United States, CN China, IN India and 1 more.

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)

abdomen, belly (of a human or animal)

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 15 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

배 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.

Where 배 is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
KR South Korea#25400,6691 in 129401K배189
KP North Korea#138≈24,000 est.≈1 in 1.1K3Bae29
US United States—6,203as Bae1 in 54K6.8KBae261
CN China—≈6,100 est.≈1 in 228K—Bae24
IN India—≈4,700 est.≈1 in 280K—Bae18
MO Macao#71≈660 est.≈1 in 926—배2
NO Norway—338as Bae1 in 16K338—5
VU Vanuatu—≈51 est.≈1 in 5.8K1——

400,669 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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names; Vanuatu Electoral Office — 2020 General Election consolidated candidate list. 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)

Formal배님께Dear Bae-nim, (English)
Informal안녕하세요, 배님Hello, (English)

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 6 sources across 1 country.

Official registers attesting 배
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
KR South KoreaKOSIS 2015 Census — surname population with hanja variants2015401K#26
KR South KoreaKOSTAT 2015 Census Vol. 3 성씨·본관편 — surname and bon-gwan population by 시도2015401K#26
KR South KoreaSGIS — 성씨 통계 (surname population statistics)2015401K—
KR South KoreaKOSIS 2015 Census — surname x bon-gwan (ancestral seat) population201584K#112
KR South KoreaKOSIS 2015 Census — surname x bon-gwan (ancestral seat) population201565K#131
KR South KoreaKOSIS 2015 Census — surname x bon-gwan (ancestral seat) population201553K#149
KR South KoreaKOSIS 2015 Census — surname x bon-gwan (ancestral seat) population201548K#162
KR South KoreaKOSIS 2015 Census — surname x bon-gwan (ancestral seat) population201539K#190
KR South KoreaKOSIS 2015 Census — surname x bon-gwan (ancestral seat) population201539K#193
KR South KoreaKOSIS 2015 Census — surname x bon-gwan (ancestral seat) population201534K#204
KR South KoreaKOSIS 2015 Census — surname x bon-gwan (ancestral seat) population201512K#362
KR South KoreaKOSIS 2015 Census — surname x bon-gwan (ancestral seat) population20157.5K#439

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 배 mean, and where does it come from?
abdomen, belly (of a human or animal) Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
How do you pronounce 배?
A machine transcription gives /pɛ/ (IPA) for Korean.
In which country does 배 have the most bearers?
In South Korea, the national register counted about 401 thousand people named 배, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled 배.
Where is 배 most common?
배 is densest in South Korea, where the national register counts about 1 in 129 people carrying it.
How common is the name 배?
In South Korea, the national register counted 400,669 people named 배 in 2015, about 1 in 129 residents.
How common is 배 compared with other names?
In South Korea, 배 is the 25th most common surname of 14,133 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about 배?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/%EB%B0%B0

The 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, “배” — the 25th most common surname in South Korea. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how 배 parses inside a full name →