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Korean Middle Names

80 Korean names with meanings and pronunciation — and an explanation of why the second syllable of a Korean name is not a middle name, however much it looks like one.

A Korean name is a one-syllable surname followed by a given name that is usually two syllables: Kim Ji-woo, Park Seo-yeon, Lee Min-jun. Surname first, always. The thing English speakers reach for is that hyphen, because Ji-woo looks like it separates into Ji and Woo the way Mary Anne separates. It does not. Ji-woo is one given name made of two elements, and splitting it produces something Korean speakers hear as a name cut in half. This is the mistake to avoid: on an American form, Kim Ji-woo should become Ji-woo Kim or Jiwoo Kim, not Ji Woo Kim with Woo sitting in the middle-name box.

Each syllable is nonetheless a separate element with its own meaning, usually a Chinese character — hanja — even though the name is written in hangul today and most young Koreans rarely write their own hanja. That is why the elements recombine so freely. Min (quick, clever), jun (talented, handsome), seo (auspicious), ji (wisdom, will), woo (excellent), hyun (virtuous, bright), eun (grace), ha (summer or river), ye (art, beauty) and yeon (graceful) build most of the names below in pairs. As in Chinese, the meaning belongs to the character rather than the sound, so ji in one family is 智, wisdom, and in another 志, will, and in a third is chosen purely for how it sounds. There is also a strand of purely native Korean names with no hanja at all — Ha-neul is simply the word for sky, I-seul is dew, Bo-ra is purple, A-reum is beauty — and these are unambiguous, since a Korean word means one thing.

The genuine parallel to a middle name is the generational syllable, dollimja. In a traditional clan lineage one of the two given-name syllables is fixed for an entire generation, so all the brothers and the male first cousins of one generation share it, and the next generation shares a different one, cycling through a sequence recorded in the clan genealogy. If your grandfather was Sung-ho and his brothers were Sung-min and Sung-jae, that shared Sung is the dollimja doing its job: it says which rung of the family ladder a person stands on. It is a middle element in position, but it is nothing like a middle name in function, because it was not chosen for the child, is not optional, and belongs to the cousins as much as to him. The practice has weakened sharply in South Korea over the past few decades, especially in families that prefer native Korean names, but it still shapes plenty of living people's names. Our guide to naming traditions worldwide puts it beside the Chinese generation name, which works the same way.

For Korean American families, the practical solution is the one most people have already landed on: an English first name with the Korean given name intact in the middle slot, kept as one word or hyphenated — David Jiho Kim, Grace Seoyeon Park. That preserves the name rather than dismembering it, and it means a Korean-speaking grandmother can use the whole thing. The alternative, a Korean first name with an English middle, works equally well and has become more common as Korean names have grown familiar in English-speaking countries.

Then there is spelling, which is genuinely messy and not your fault. South Korea adopted Revised Romanization in 2000, but personal names were explicitly left alone, so families keep whatever spelling they have always used. The surname 이 is Lee, Yi, Rhee or Ri depending on the family; 박 is Park, Bak or Pak; 최 is Choi, which is not "choy" but closer to "chwe"; 김 is Kim under every system but Gim in strict Revised Romanization, which nobody uses for the name. Given names split the same way: 서연 appears as Seo-yeon, Seoyeon, Suh-yun and Suhyeon, all one name. The vowel written eo is the "u" of "cut," not "ee-oh," so Seo is roughly "suh" and Seong is "sung." The vowel eu is a tight unrounded "uh" with no English equivalent; approximating Ha-neul as "HA-nul" is close enough. Korean has no strong stress accent, so keep the two syllables even rather than leaning on one. And ae is a plain "eh," which is why Tae- is "teh," not "tay-ee."

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Pairing rule for Korean middles: decide the hyphen once and keep it. Ji-woo, Jiwoo and Ji Woo are three different strings to a school database, an airline and a passport office, and the third one will eventually be read as two names by somebody who then files the child under Woo. The safest form on American paperwork is the closed spelling, Jiwoo, with the hyphen kept for family use. On sound: most of these names end in a vowel or an n, and Korean surnames in the middle slot are rare, so the seam that matters is Korean middle against English surname. A name ending in -n before a surname starting with N doubles up — Emma Seo-yeon Nolan — and the -woo and -yu endings need a consonant after them, so Jiwoo Bennett lands and Jiwoo Owens does not.

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Nearby origins: Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, or all 24 origin lists. If the name is coming from a grandparent's generation, see honoring family and two middle names. By style, most of these are two-syllable middles; the choosing method is in the guide.