Korean names
| Korean name | |
| Hangul | / |
|---|---|
| Hanja | 이름 / |
| Revised Romanization | ireum / seongmyeong |
| McCune–Reischauer | irŭm / sŏngmyŏng |
| Table of (Additional) Hanja for Personal Name Use | |
| Hangul | 인명용추가한자표 |
|---|---|
| Hanja | 人名用追加漢字表 |
| Revised Romanization | inmyeongyong chuga hanjapyo |
| McCune–Reischauer | inmyŏngyong ch'uga hanchap'yo |
A Korean name consists of a family name followed by a given name, as used by the Korean people in both South Korea and North Korea. In the Korean language, ireum or seongmyeong usually refers to the family name (seong) and given name (ireum in a narrow sense) together.
Traditional Korean family names typically consist of only one syllable. There is no middle name in the English language sense. Many Koreans have their given names made of a generational name syllable and an individually distinct syllable, though this practice is declining in the younger generations. The generational name syllable is shared by siblings in North Korea, and by all members of the same generation of an extended family in South Korea. Married men and women usually keep their full personal names, and children inherit the father's family name.
The family names are subdivided into bongwan (clans), i.e. extended families which originate in the lineage system used in previous historical periods. Each clan is identified by a specific place, and traces its origin to a common patrilineal ancestor.
Early names based on the Korean language were recorded in the Three Kingdoms period (57 BCE – 668 CE), but with the growing adoption of the Chinese writing system, these were gradually replaced by names based on Chinese characters (hanja). During periods of Mongol influence, the ruling class supplemented their Korean names with Mongolian names.
Because of the many changes in Korean romanization practices over the years, modern Koreans, when using languages written in Latin script, romanize their names in various ways, most often approximating the pronunciation in English orthography. Some keep the original order of names, while others reverse the names to match the usual Western pattern.
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