Korean Name Generator
Generate authentic Korean names for your fiction — given names with common Korean surnames, for contemporary and historical characters.
Generate Korean Names
Click Generate to get your names.
Korean names in fiction
Korean names follow a family name — given name order: the family name (성, seong) comes first, then the given name (이름, ireum). Korean family names are relatively few in number — Kim, Lee, Park, Choi, and Jung account for more than half the South Korean population — so the given name carries most of the distinguishing work.
Korean given names are usually two syllables (characters), each of which may have meaning. Many given names use a generational name (돌림자) — one syllable shared by all siblings or cousins of the same generation — though this practice is less common in contemporary naming. When writing Korean characters, knowing whether your story is set in a context where these conventions are followed or have been relaxed is worth establishing.
Romanisation
Korean names can be romanised in several ways. The Revised Romanisation of Korean (the current standard) differs from the older McCune–Reischauer system. Many Korean people have personal preferences for how their names are written in English. If your character is Korean-American or has a strongly Westernised context, they may use a simplified or modified romanisation of their name.