What's My Korean Name?

How Korean names work

Family name first. A Korean name is written family name first, then the given name, as one block of Hangul with no space: 김예림 is Kim (family) + Yerim (given). Most names are three syllables: a one-syllable surname and a two-syllable given name. Two-syllable surnames such as 남궁 (Namgung) exist but are rare. People usually call friends by the full name or the given name alone. Using only the surname sounds cold or even rude.

A few surnames cover most of the country. Korea has only a few hundred surnames, and Kim, Lee and Park alone account for nearly half the population. Each family name also belongs to a clan seat, called 본관 (bon-gwan). It names the town where the line began, so a Gimhae Kim and a Gyeongju Kim are different families. Korean women traditionally keep their own surname when they marry.

Hanja carry the meaning. Names are written in Hangul, but each syllable is usually registered with a hanja, a Chinese character chosen for its meaning. The same sound can mean very different things. 민 can be 敏 (quick-witted), 旻 (autumn sky) or 珉 (jade-like stone). Parents choose from an official list of characters approved for personal names (인명용 한자), which now holds more than 9,000 characters. Each name card above shows the hanja we picked, plus other common ones for the same syllable that you can tap to swap in.

Generation names (돌림자). Many traditional families give every child of the same generation one shared syllable, set long ago in the clan's genealogy book (족보). Brothers and male cousins might all be Seung-something, for example Seungwoo and Seunghyeon. The shared syllable often rotates through the five elements from one generation to the next. Fewer young parents follow this strictly today, but you will still see it in many families.

Five elements (오행). Traditional namers balance wood, fire, earth, metal and water. Our simple version reads the element of your birth-year stem: years ending in 4–5 are Wood, 6–7 Fire, 8–9 Earth, 0–1 Metal and 2–3 Water. It then looks at the radical inside each hanja: 氵 water, 木 wood, 火 or 日 fire, 土 or 山 earth, 金 or 玉 metal. A character that shares your element, or feeds it in the cycle wood → fire → earth → metal → water → wood, counts as a good fit. A professional naming expert would use your full birth date and hour (saju), so treat ours as a fun approximation.

Native Korean names. Some popular names are plain Korean words with no hanja: 하늘 Haneul (sky), 한결 Hangyeol (always steadfast), 윤슬 Yunseul (sunlight sparkling on water). These 순우리말 names became popular from the 1980s and sound fresh and warm.

Romanization. We use the official Revised Romanization (RR) for given names, written as one word (Yerim) or with a hyphen (Ye-rim). Surnames are shown in their most familiar spelling, such as Lee, Park or Choi, with the strict RR form (I, Bak, Choe) beside it. Koreans really do write them both ways.

Common surnames used by this generator

Population shares are rounded approximations from Statistics Korea's 2015 census. The hanja for a surname depends on the clan (for example, 강 can be 姜 or 康); we show the most common one.

Frequently asked questions

Are these real Korean names?

Yes. Every suggestion comes from a hand-picked list of given names that Koreans actually use, paired with a common Korean surname. The tool never glues random syllables together, and it skips surname and name combinations that spell an awkward Korean word.

Why does the surname come first in a Korean name?

Korean names are written family name first, then the given name, with no space in Hangul. Kim Yerim is 김예림: Kim is the family name and Yerim is the given name. In English, many Koreans keep this order and some swap it.

What are hanja and does every Korean name have them?

Hanja are Chinese characters used in Korean. Most given names are written in Hangul but registered with a hanja for each syllable, and the hanja carries the meaning. Parents pick them from an official list of characters approved for names. Some names are native Korean words, such as Haneul (sky), and have no hanja at all.

For fun and cultural curiosity. If you need a legal Korean name (for example, for naturalization), check the official character list and get advice from a professional.