Korean Last Name Generator

Kim is carried by about 21 percent of South Koreans, Lee by about 15 percent and Park by about 8 percent. The rest of the top ten are Choi, Jung (Jeong), Kang, Cho (Jo), Yoon, Jang and Lim (Im). Together the top ten cover about two-thirds of the population, which is why Koreans rarely address one another by surname alone.

Two-syllable surnames such as Namgung, Hwangbo, Sunwoo, Dokgo, Sagong, Seomun and Jegal are rare and memorable. Rarer still are single-syllable names like Gwok (궉), Eogeum, Sobong, Bing (ice), Ya (night), Muk (ink) and Dae, the name of the old Balhae royal house. Several of these are carried by only a few hundred people in the entire country.

The surname is written 이 in hangul and pronounced close to 'ee'. Lee became the standard English spelling in the 20th century, Yi is used by academics and for historical figures such as Yi Sun-sin, Rhee was favored by some early emigrants, the official Revised Romanization gives I, and North Korea keeps the original initial consonant and writes Ri.

Bon-gwan is the town a clan traces its founder to, such as Gimhae for the largest Kim clan or Jeonju for the royal Lee clan. It distinguishes unrelated families who share a surname. Until 2005 two people with the same surname and bon-gwan could not legally marry, and many Koreans still know their clan and generation name, so it adds authenticity to historical or family-focused fiction.