How we spell your name in Hangul

This service writes your name in Hangul. It does not give you a Korean name. Michael becomes 마이클 — the same name, written so Koreans can read and say it. We do not swap it for a Korean name that happens to mean something similar.

If a Korean name is what you want, that is a different service. One keeps your name and changes only the script; the other proposes a new name.

Every language has sounds Korean lacks — f, v, z, th, and vowel distinctions Korean does not make. For those we write what a Korean speaker actually says when they read your name aloud, rather than transcribing the original phonetics symbol by symbol. The goal is the spelling that will be used, not the most technically faithful one.

The same spelling can differ depending on where a name comes from, so we ask for your language and country and work from that pronunciation.

There is no single right answer. The spelling closest to the original sound, the one most commonly used in Korea, and the one easiest to write are often three different things. So we show them together and say what separates them.

If none of them feel right, you can add a hint about the sound you want and run it again — for example, that a particular syllable should be written differently.

These two are easy to confuse, so here is the difference: they run in opposite directions.

• Romanization takes a Korean person's Hangul name and writes it in the Latin alphabet. It is fixed when a passport is issued, and from then on tickets, visas and bank accounts all follow that spelling. 김민준 becomes Kim Minjun.
• Hangul transliteration — what this service does — runs the other way. It takes a name written in the Latin alphabet and writes how it sounds in Hangul. Daniel becomes 대니얼.

So what you get here does not change the spelling in your passport. That romanization is already fixed; this is that name written back in Hangul. The two do not always convert back into each other exactly — writing a sound Korean does not have loses a little information on the way.

A Hangul spelling is usually needed in places like these.

• Introducing yourself — showing your name in Hangul, or saying it in Korean
• A Hangul name field on a form — registrations and applications that ask for your name in Hangul. Note that the institution decides what goes on an official document — what you get here does not stand in for that
• A name stamp or keepsake — the spelling to carve

It is normal for more than one spelling to be defensible. When a name can be written several ways in Hangul we show them side by side and leave the choice to you.