Talk:Korean name

message: first paragraph says that kim, lee and park account for over half the population; further down it says that the top *5* do same.  so what are #4 and #5, chopped liver? 66.105.218.50 (talk) 06:12, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: 3 or 5?

message: maybe the image has the wrong caption or something?  the 'sung' character isnt a korean name per se, its basically what it says in the article.  , my name, is an example of a korean name.  if im going in a totally wrong direction as to what the caption is supposed to mean... Applegoddess 08:31, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, the image is terrible.  However, I don't think "이름" would be any better, since although the Korean word for name, it is not "a Korean name."  It would be better to have a common Korean name in Hangul and Hanja, as often written in official documents... but which name?  -- Visviva 03:32, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I vote for 홍길동 Hong Gil-dong, the name of Robin Hood-type bandit hero which is often used in Korea to stand for an unspecified name, like John Doe in English. The image could include colour-coded explanations of the components: 홍 being the family name, 길동 being the given name. I would do this myself, but I don't have access to Photoshop off my school network. --Iceager 04:06, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Tried it at :Image:Honggildong.gif and :Image:Honggildong2.gif... not really satisfied with those, though.  MS Publisher keeps putting gunk in the image.  -- Visviva 08:55, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Current image 

message: I'm writing a noval and the main charicters final and lasting name is Joshua. can you help me with the korean name tranlation? specifically, if possible, the 11th or 12th century. this information has been very difficult for me to obtain and is very important to my writing. thank you
:  What about Ju-bi (주비/主毘)?  That could have a meaning similar to "The Lord is help."  However, the Old Testament name Joshua is usually rendered in Korean as 여호수아 (Yeo-ho-su-a).  -- Visviva 03:29, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Joshua 

message: "This may be attributed to a growing feminist influence in the nation" (from Family Names section)...this sentence is a big vague. ~ Dpr 05:02, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Feminism 

message: An older Korean friend of mine once told me this as an example of traditional Korean humor. I would love to add it to the article because it is kind of cute, but it isn't verifiable; I can't find any version of it on the Google search engine.
As best as i remember it:
:A man climbs to the top of Namsan mountain and throws a rock. Who gets hit?
:Kim
:The man throws a second rock. Who gets hit?
:Lee (or Rhee, or Yi, or whatever)
:The man throws a third rock. Who gets hit?
:Park
Actually, there was then some bit about the identity of the man throwing the rocks, but I can't remember what that was. Laconic 07:01, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: An Old Joke

message: :The spelling "Park" may have come about because spellings such as "Bak", "Pak", and other such variations do not naturally look as though they would rhyme with "dock" in English.
This statement is confusing, as "park" doesn't look like it rhymes with "dock", either, nor does it in fact. "Pock" would have been a more logical spelling, if it was just a sound issue. Besides, "Pak" does look like it rhymes with "dock", doesn't it (unless you speak American English like me)? Is there a source for this apparent speculation? Can it be clarified or corrected? — Jeff Q (talk) 07:12, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unclear spelling reason 

message: * The image of the Hangul character on the front page should be replaced by an image of the same Hangul character but with alpha (transparency) and grayscale instead of subpixel smoothing. The subpixel smoothing looks bad on some monitors and increases the file size. Adding an alpha channel and converting the image to grayscale, when the image is optimized with optipng, brings its size down from 4184 bytes to 2441 bytes. Removing the alpha channel brings the size down to 2050 bytes. I have the modified images on my hard drive. Andrew pmk 16:58, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggest optimizing image of Hangul character and making its background transparent 

message: The easiest way to identify a Korean name among other East Asian names is that they almost always consist of three characters, which translate to three syllables in English.
Isn't that true of most Chinese names as well? This doesn't seem like a very useful heuristic.
::You can tell the difference between Korean, Chinese, and Japanese. First, Chinese last names end like "Zhang", or "Zheng" or "Li", a lot of them have a "g" as an ending. "Shi" is also chinese.
:Korean last names are like Kim, or Lee, Hong. They are really short.
:Japanese names are the easiest to tell. They are almost always long. i.e. "Kaneyama" "Wakizaka"
Good friend100 02:14, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Identifying Korean names 

message: What about saying something regarding the branches of families? It's a common question - "Which Kim family are you from?" or "What's your hometown?" although hometown has an entirely different freight in Korean culture. The Kims from Andong have been very influential and powerful over the past couple hundred years, and the Chun family, also very large, has an influential branch from Chinan. The Min family, on the other hand, has no branches, something quite unusual. --Dan 16:38, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Families and clans 

message: Topics this article should cover, at least in a glancing way:  posthumous names/temple names, courtesy names, pen names, childhood names (초명), monk names, kisaeng names, ... and of course nicknames in their historical and modern-day manifestations.  More?  -- Visviva 02:54, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other names 

message: Hi, the references to empas and naver are a bit low-quality, IMHO. Firstly, there are no links, so it's not easily verifiable, and secondly, the idea of using empas or naver as sources seems very unprofessional, IMHO. --Kjoonlee 03:42, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough, but the links are present; see the "References" section.  In my experience, Naver and Empas are both fairly high-quality tertiary sources, and as such they are clearly allowed by Wikipedia:Reliable sources.  Empas in particular is generally good at citing its own sources, which would make it a "preferred" tert source.  On the other hand, non-English tertiary sources are never ideal; if you can find proper scholarly works on Korean naming practices, please feel free to replace the citations.   I came up a bit empty in my own search of the local (Korean) uni library; I have some Korean-language tertiary print resources, but if anything those seem a bit lower on the verifiability pole.  Cheers, -- Visviva 08:37, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, thanks. I somehow missed them the last time I had a look. Naver seems to use the Doosan EnCyber Encyclopedia and Empas seems to use the Korean edition of the Britannica. --Kjoonlee 10:22, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources from empas and naver 

message: Hi, can anybody clarify to me what is the right way for writing Korean names in Roman? Wherever I look, for instance, internet, television, newspapers and even Wikipedia I see many different ways on how these names are written and I'd like to know which one is the best way to do it. For instance speed skater Lee Kyu-Hyuk has his article on Wikipedia under this name, among with lots of others who have their name written like this. However there are also tons of articles, where the names are written in other ways, like Lee Kyu-hyuk, Lee Kyu Hyuk and Kyu-Hyuk Lee. Is there anybody who can tell me more about this? Thanks, SportsAddicted | discuss 19:17, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no widely-accepted standard.  On Wikipedia, we generally follow Xxx Yyy-zzz, per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Korean), unless a different version has become established in English usage.  Outside of Wikipedia, pretty much anything goes; in Western countries, the names are often written with the family name last.  -- Visviva 23:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, that was what I needed :), SportsAddicted | discuss 01:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Interesting, but I would suggest that you try addressing a random selection of Korean adults (in Korean) by their given names alone and seeing where that gets you. I'm guessing from the creative misspellings that you, like me, are not actually Korean; bear in mind that we tend to get something of a free pass on issues like this.  -- Visviva 23:15, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Korean naming conventions 

message: anjaseo means hi —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.30.246.157 (talk) 21:38, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: <ot>앉아서 anjaseo doesn't mean hi. You must be talking about 안녕하세요 annyeonghaseyo, which might sound a bit like 안냐세요 annyaseyo.</ot> --Kjoonlee 01:49, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  anjaseo 

message: Inmyongyong chuga hanjapyo redirects here with no explanation; the term appears nowhere in the text, nor does the redirect jump to an appropriate section - furrykef (Talk at me) 18:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Judging from its name, I think it's meant to be about an additional table of Hanja for characters that are only used in names/surnames. --Kjoonlee 21:33, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It probably meant to link to here: List_of_Korean_family_names If someone would fill in the rough meanings of the hanja too on that page it would help those who don't speak English. And would in turn help this page out too.--Hitsuji Kinno 07:20, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I highly doubt that the link for the list of Hanja for use in personal names (i.e. given names) is meant to redirect to the list of Korean family names (i.e. surnames). Brett (talk) 18:05, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inmyongyong chuga hanjapyo 

message: My boyfriend's name is Jun Pyo Yung, he was adopted back in the late 80's and still trying to find his parents. I was curious about his name and realized that this might be a harder task to endeavor than expected. "yung" seems to be as common as Smith! I wish someone out there could help! He could use a little direction. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by GF Jun Pyo (talk • contribs) 21:14, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: wikt:Appendix:Korean surnames#.E3.85.87 says Yeong is very rare. Yong is a bit more common. Compare Kim. --Kjoonlee 23:24, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yun is more common than the first two. (I don't know anyone named Yeong or Yong, but I know several people called Yun.) --Kjoonlee 23:25, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adoption 

message: Some people have given names that are Sino-Korean numerals, presumably in the order of birth.  Kim Gu is one example, and I knew a pair of brothers named Nam Il and Nam I.  I'm not really sure how common this is overall, but if someone knows more and could find a good source, it would be great.  --Reuben 19:46, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Numeral-names 

message: I don't see why this article has such a high quality rating.  It seems to focus on random facts that aren't very important. Andyohio 01:37, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article quality 

message: Chinese historical records gave Yeon Gaesomun's surname as 泉 instead of original surname 淵 due to Chinese traditional naming taboo. So it has nothing to do with the translation or transcription of a native name into Chinese. 
In my view, 柯須弥 would have been a japanized transcription for 蓋蘇文 according to the typical phonetic system of ancient Japanese language, rather than a transcription reflecting a Goguryeo-pronunciation for that word. As for iri , it could have been the translation for 淵. But the translation into which language? There is no proof whether the word ‘iri’is the Japanese translation for the meaning of 淵 or merely the japanized transcription of the original goguryeo word for 淵. 
Jagello (talk) 16:11, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Native names in Korean History 

message: Some information from Korean language encyclopedias:
Korea Britannica:
Before the 3 Kingdoms period, even the aristocracy did not have family names.
In 1055 (Goryeo), a new law said that people without family names could not take public office tests.
During Joseon Dynasty, hanja family and personal names were firmly established, but the lower caste (chonmin) used native Korean (not hanja) names.
Among the common people, who suffered from high child mortality, children were called vulgar names (amyong, childhood name), to wish them long lives by avoiding notice from the grim reaper (very loosely translated).
Doosan Encyber:
(This article has more info on various types of names, and Silla and Baekje king names)
Peasants sometimes only used amyong throughout their lives.
Women usually dropped their amyong when married, using taekho instead.
A census taken in 1910 showed a ratio of 1.3 to 1 for people without family names to those with family names.
Hopefully someone has time to put some of the info into the article. Thanks. Chuniac (talk) 18:53, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  For Featured Article Review people 

message: I've worked on the Reference section style uniformity and need assistance with some of the Korean language entries:
*In url=http://www.korean.go.kr/nkview/nklife/1999_4/9_11.htm , the English language translation for title=Hanguk seongmyeong-ui saengseong baldal (한국 성명의 생성 발달)   
::Formation and Development of Korean Names Chuniac (talk) 16:47, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Creation of family names and revision of given names (but probably best to leave it as Changssi Gaemyeong or the Japanese counterpart)Chuniac (talk) 16:47, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Courtesy nameChuniac (talk) 16:47, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

text: Name creation / 'ja' disappearing from female namesChuniac (talk) 16:47, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

text: News from The National Academy of Korean Language Chuniac (talk) 16:47, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

text: Chuniac, thank you for your assistance with all the above. Rosiestephenson (talk) 07:38, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: "A long history of the use of family names has caused surname extinction."  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.101.39.77 (talk) 01:00, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It isn't obvious, but it starts making sense if you read the "surname extinction" link: Galton-Watson process --Kjoonlee 03:57, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  This sentence, in the intro paragraph, makes no sense. 

message: The section Given Names is very misleadingly worded as it states that "few people have one-character given names...People with two-character family names often have a one-character given name." I would be surprised to learn that monosyllabic given names are any more common with disyllabic surnames than with monosyllabic surnames, but please feel free to prove me wrong. Absent such proof I would like to change "few" above to "some" and delete the final sentence in its entirety.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wgisland (talk • contribs) 03:27, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You say that you "would be surprised to learn that monosyllabic given names are any more common with disyllabic surnames than with monosyllabic surnames", but I think you're in for a surprise. Of the many Koreans I've known over the years, I've known several with two-character surnames, and every one of them had a single character given name. I admit that this is anecdotal, and cries out for a real statistical study of, say, the Seoul Metropolitan Telephone Directory, but with the general uncommonness of both two-character surnames (with any given name) and of single-character given names (with any surname), it's hard to imagine that all of those rare double-character surnames I've known ended up with rare single-character given names by random chance. I think it's far more likely that things are as they themselves have explained to me: that a lot of Koreans assume that names are, at most, three characters, so they leave room for only three characters in government forms, school and job applications, on namecards, name plates, tojang stamps, etc. Having two-character surnames causes enough trouble; there's no reason to add to the trouble by voluntarily making the whole name too long to fit in many places. Again, this is anecdotal on my part, and I haven't talked about this issue for a generation and naming conventions change, and I'll surrender to a real statistical study of current names, but until then, I'll be surprised if you're not surprised. --tuanglen  —Preceding undated comment added 07:08, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The reason I said I would be surprised is because out of all of the people I've met with either a disyllabic surname or a monosyllabic given name I still haven't met one person who has both. The one current celebrity I can think of off the top of my head who fits either of those criteria has a 4-syllable name (황보혜정). Thus, absent such a formal survey, I say we leave out the unverified claim that the two rarities commonly go together. Brett (talk) 13:19, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Disyllabic Surnames

message: It would be nice to have better examples and also a contrast between male and female names in this section. Currently there are only male names. =P Not to sound feminist, but more along the line that it might give a bit more symmetry to the section and clarification. Also, it would be nice to know when the conversion from 3-syllable given name versus 2 syllable was quicker in the upper class or lower class and how long it actually persisted. i.e. Did the nobility convert to 2-syllable, Chinese based faster than the common population? And given the common population had limited access to education, was that conversion slower and persisted through the Joseon era?
Also, it would be nice to display gender biases between names as well on a general basis. Are there divisions of names in Korean that are only female or only male? Yong, meaning dragon, I tend to see more in male names. Ryong as well (meaning the same.) Thanks.
--Hitsuji Kinno (talk) 18:54, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Old Korean Names

message: When and why did people stop pronouncing the "L" sound in Lee? Why do they still spell it as Lee in English if they don't say it like that?  Are Koreans required by their government to have a Romanized version of their name? 94.173.122.171 (talk) 12:22, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It's even transliterated as Rhee. 2A00:23C5:C13C:9F00:908E:46C8:13A6:1C9A (talk) 14:16, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Lee / Yi

message: Korean women traditionally keep their family names after their marriage, but their children take the father's surname. In the pre-modern, patriarchal Korean society people were extremely conscious of familial values and their own family identities. Korean women keep their surnames after marriage based on traditional reasoning that it is what they inherited from their parents and ancestors, and cannot be changed. According to traditions, each clan publishes a comprehensive genealogy (jokbo) every 30 years.
This is not entirely true. Yes, while their full names remain the same, it is actually custom for a lot of women (I'm assuming all? even the celebrities and royalty?) to have a similar concept of Western women, where they are called by their husband's surnames or as "Mrs. ___ [whatever he is]". Chinese women have always had something similar. This article is quite biased as it makes it seem that Korean women are more different from the other women (usually Western, though I could be wrong) who change to their husband's surnames. I think the majority are still addressed by it, even if they are able to retain their birth names. See Married_and_maiden_names#Korea, and actually, all the Asian countries on that page (pay special attention to East Asia). Estheroliver (talk) 06:32, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no more royalty, and royalty never has last names. Argh, it's late. Estheroliver (talk) 06:32, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Women's surnames

message: It says that Korean doesn't have gendered pronouns (in contrast, for example, to English "he" and "she"). What relevance does this have to names? Conversely, if Korean names do or do not indicate gender, what relevance does this have to pronouns? Collin237  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 32.178.241.55 (talk) 12:50, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronouns 

message: I doubt the existence of this so-called "Korean Naming Law of 1812" currently referenced in the first sentence of the second intro paragraph. Did some research and cannot find any reputable source that predates . Keeping in mind that I neither speak nor read Korean and that sources may exist that are not in English/on the internet, I will not remove the clause just yet. However, since I may forget to check back, if this item remains unsourced by June 2013, then please remove it after you have done some research yourself. Three years without being sourced is too long.  —CodeHydro 14:36, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  1812 

message: Can someone explain me what the suffixes like the ones in the following examples represent ? Chung Hong-won, Lee Wan-koo, Choi Kyoung-hwan, Hwang Kyo-ahn, Lee Myung-bak, Yuk Young-soo, Kim Ir-sen, Kim Jong-un, Gong Deok-gwi, Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-boo, Kim Jong-su, Kim Jong-pil, Kim Jong-nam, Kim Jong-suk, Kim Jong-chul, Kim Jong-hyeok. Călușaru' (talk) 11:39, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: They are not suffixes. A Korean given name (first name; there is no middle name) usually consists of two syllables. When romanized, a hyphen is often inserted between the syllables. I thought this was mentioned somewhere in the article, but surprisingly it is not. I just added a short paragraph about this. 76.102.5.114 (talk) 00:24, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suffixes 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: There is mention of bongwan in the intro - but nothing in the body. As I understand it, the bongwan is not treated as part of the name - ie not used when addressing or identifying someone, and in fact many people may know thier name, but not their bongwan. Correct? Snori (talk) 23:34, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Clarification of bongwan

message: The text of the article should address the legalities and specifics of the MR and RR schemes for romanizing Korean names. On Korean passports, where the person didn't opt for a romanization themselves, what was/is used? Hyphenated given names are standard in MR. Does the RR mandate them or do people just sometimes continue to use them? — LlywelynII 01:44, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: For South Korean passports: South Korean nationals are not required to follow a certain romanization system. But the applicant must write their romanized name on their first passport application. A hyphen is not a requirement either – the current default for given names is with neither hyphen nor space, e.g. GILDONG for 길동. --172.223.210.99 (talk) 21:30, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

text: "Hyphenated given names are standard in MR" is actually false. The original MR system simply joins syllables of a given name without hyphens or spaces. I just added an excerpt from the original paper to the McCune–Reischauer page. See McCune–Reischauer#Personal names. 176.195.170.207 (talk) 06:31, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Romanization

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: As some may know, Kim Il-sung gave the Il part of his given name (although it's not his original name so I don't know if either part can really be called a generation name) to his sons as their generation name (which was the second character in their name, first in his). This was followed by Kim Jong-il doing something similar, in his case giving the personal part of his given name Jong to his sons but as the first character (i.e. the generation name order was flipped but the shared character was in the same order). Kim Jong-nam didn't do the same, we plebs don't know if Kim Jong-un has or plans to do the same. But anyway I'm wondering whether this practice of a father giving part of his name (probably the personal part if he has a generation name) to his sons as their generation name is common in North Korea. I'm guessing it isn't traditional. (At least AFAIK it isn't common among most CHinese for example.) But given the significance of the Kim family I'm wondering if others adopted the same practice. Or maybe that's considered reserved for the godly Kims. Nil Einne (talk) 03:45, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Generation names, particularly in North Korea 

message: Further Reading section needs updating. Many of the links are dead. I updated one, but don't have time to do them all. I added the update section banner until someone finishes updating it. Probably need to check all the links on this page. So many old links to data through Korean sites, which have mostly changed. --mindlessbuddha (talk) 14:34, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: That section has been finally removed. 176.195.170.207 (talk) 06:31, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Further Reading