Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Korean)

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Because of their length, the previous discussions on this page have been archived. If further archiving is needed, see Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page.

Previous discussions:

• Archive 1 (to September 1 2004):
• Archive 2 (to July 2005):
• Archive 3 (to July 2006):

---

See also Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Korea-related articles). — Instantnood 20:16, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Hyphen use 2 McCune-Reischauer: Yi or I? 2.1 Last names 2.2 Admiral Yi is Korean 3 Korean names of provinces 3.1 province update 4 Proposed guidelines 4.1 given name 4.2 mountain 4.3 island 4.4 river 4.5 temple 4.6 county 5 Korean name 6 Diacritics in MR 7 North Korea 8 Name order

[edit] Hyphen use

Forgive me that I am so picky and bored as to read through the M-R and RR guidelines, but in both schemes, such names as Hallasan and Kŭmgangsan really shouldn't have hyphens in them... Should those be changed to match guidelines too? Please do respond if you have any comment, because I am quite worried to change the above si/shi combinations already with no support/opposition, and I am not an expert! (I think I will leave alone mixing the use of ʻ (aspirated consonants) and ʼ (separating syllables that may be confused), because that may really be going too far...)

I promise when my summer holidays here in Sydney ends in a few days, I won't have time to be so picky... until July :-) -- KittySaturn 05:43, 2005 Mar 1 (UTC)

I'm pro-hyphen. Hyphens disambiguate syllable boundaries, and provide valuable information to non-speakers of Korean. Of course, in the case of Hallasan and Geumgangsan, there isn't much to disambiguate. But even there, hyphens do clarify the internal structure of the name somewhat. Visviva 16:57, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Whatever. Important is to have redirects for the other versions. Kokiri 28 June 2005 23:22 (UTC)

Just a note that the North Korean government use Mt. X on Naenara, whilst the South Korean tourist board use Mt. Xsan (no hyphens). Well, I've engaged Google:

Name     Xsan   X-san   Mt X   Mt Xsan   Mt X-san
Halla    6080   4390    4270   736       76
Jiri     6500   648     1170   395       7
Chiri    522    436     556    151       7
Sorak    4020   828     4530   389       9
Seorak   9060   1040    1820   4900      1   
Kumgang  840    750     8920   75        251
Geumgang 752    259     4130   317       102   
Baekdu   8110   102     626    281       8
Baektu   29     3       16     5         0
Paektu   691    3420    5700   85        4
Myohyang 459    223     511    17        3
Kuwol    839    590     518    4         0

Kokiri 2 July 2005 18:05 (UTC)

Template:Korean mountain names may be useful in figuring out which redirects to add. (I've already covered most of Category:Mountains of North Korea. Oh, and I've mellowed on hyphens. I just can't manage to care anymore. -- Visviva 03:07, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] McCune-Reischauer: Yi or I?

User:Mr Tan's adjustment of the name table for Sunjong of Korea leads me to bring this matter here. The question is: in the name table, should the MR for 이 (family name) be rendered as Yi or I? Mccune-reischauer.org suggests I, and I can't find anything to contradict that. For that reason, I had been changing Yi to I whenever I ran across it.

Yi for 이 is common usage, but then again so is "Woo" for 우 and the aforementioned "Shi" for 시, neither of which belong in a name table. Can anyone find a reason to prefer Yi?

In any case, this shouldn't affect the way we spell names in articles, since Yi is the spelling preferred by most 이s who are not Lees. -- Visviva 12:30, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

As you know, there are three main files on the MR site that guide our transliterations. The 1939 file seems to allow it, while explicitly prohibiting Ri and Li (p. 52):

"Another very important example is 李, the surname of the kings of the last Korean dynasty and still a very common Korean surname. Actually it is pronounced in the standard dialect and should be Romanized I, but some may prefer to retain the older Romanization, Yi, because that is already the familiar form. In any case the other Romanizations of 李, Ri and Li, should not be used."

The 1961 seems to say nothing about it; and the Library of Congress guidelines use Yi (page 100):

The surname 李 is always romanized Yi, no matter how it is written (李, 이, 리).

(However I personally usually do not follow the last file; for example it prefers putting spaces even before particles, which the original 1939 formulation doesn't.) I think Yi is one of the exceptions that has stuck. And we wouldn't write the "this" 이 as yi. But in my opinion I think the surname Yi is allowable. On the other hand, 시 has never been shi in any of these three files, so there isn't much reason any more to write it as shi since South Korea developed their RR. -- KittySaturn 04:54, 2005 Jun 16 (UTC)

Isn't "should be romanized I" clear enough? I'm fine with Yi in articles and I within its box, but any Yis really shouldn't be called "McCune-Reischauer". Once we start to deviate from the 1930's MR guidelines and start to do what's the most common way to do something, we'd also run into all sorts of hyphenation / spacing issues. I strongly support Visviva's suggestion to use the hyphen only to separate administrative divisions and do away with the LOC's rules about spacing, hyphenation and using two different ' marks. The LOC guidelines simply aren't MR, and I think we should keep that separation at the WP. I won't change any Yis yet, but I'd like to hear from any supporters of Yi. Wikipeditor

[edit] Last names

There are certain last names which are seldom romanized according to RR, even in texts which otherwise follow RR religiously. For that reason, I propose to adopt the following conventions for the family names of individuals who have no defined official/preferred romanization. As I see it, this falls under the general rubric of Wikipedia:Use common names.

• 김 (gim) --> Kim
• 박 (bak) --> Pak
• 이 (i) --> Yi
• 신 (sin) --> Shin (?)
• 강 (gang) --> Kang (?)

Other family names would continue to follow the Revised Romanization (or McCune-Reischauer for North Koreans).

This would mostly apply to historical figures, since most prominent living Koreans have a preferred romanization. With the possible exception of Bak Hyeokgeose, I don't think any historical Kim or Pak is commonly romanized as Gim or Bak. And no Yi is commonly romanized as I. The cases of Sin and Gang are less clear-cut; I'd be willing to see them dropped from the list, although I think Shin and Kang are reasonably prevalent spellings.

With a few exceptions, most of our Wikipedia articles already follow this convention. Codifying it will just help us to keep track of existing practice, and of where an existing article is likely to be located. -- Visviva 14:50, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

i agree, this should go into the guideline. do you think bak hyeokgeose should be renamed pak? i'm not sure about shin or kang, though, fewer exceptions are easier to memorize & enforce. Appleby 16:44, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, let's keep it to Kim, Pak and Yi, with standardized romanization for the others (including Choe). -- Visviva 06:45, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Admiral Yi is Korean

Could we drop the "Yi" in "Yi Sun-sin" for Admiral Yi Sun-sin. Yi is used more for Chinese names and it sounds like Admiral Yi is Chinese to people outside Wikipedia, which he is not.

I think we should drop "Yi" completely and use "Lee" or even "E" (since "E" "이" is the Korean pronounciation. Good friend100 21:47, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

it's not easy to solve, especially considering the wider implications for all the various korean surnames for historical figures. Bak or Park? Sin or Shin? Gim or Kim? An or Ahn? we need a consistent system.

wouldn't Lee also sound possibly chinese? i think with both rr and mr systems, it would be romanized simply "i". that looks pretty awkward, and many people would pronounce it "eye". so the question is what is the most common english spelling for historical korean figures with that name (excluding modern people because they can make personal choices of their own name spelling)? i think visviva's point above was that Yi is pretty common, as a compromise considering accurate pronunciation, non-awkwardness, and actual common usage. do you have any other evidence to consider (scholarly references, even google search)? Appleby 22:05, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Lee might sound chinese but "Li" is the chinese equivalent. Chinese people use "Li" not "Lee". One possible english spelling of "Yi" might be "Ii" but thats used in Japan. Good friend100 02:53, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Korean names of provinces

Hi! I made this suggestion a few minutes ago on the German wikipedia. Why are the names of the provinces not written the korean way? For example Jeollabuk-do instead of North Jeolla. I guess, most provinces of other countries are written in the original way, for example Vest-Agder. Outside of the Wikipedia, the complete Korean names are also more common, at least according to this google fight. What do you think?

• South Korea: North Chungcheong -> Chungcheongbuk-do, South Chungcheong -> Chungcheongnam-do, Gangwon -> Gangwon-do, Gyeonggi -> Gyeonggi-do, North Gyeongsang -> Gyeongsangbuk-do, South Gyeongsang -> Gyeongsangnam-do, Jeju -> Jeju-do, North Jeolla -> Jeollabuk-do, South Jeolla -> Jeollabuk-do,
• North Korea: Chagang -> Chagang-do, North Hamgyong -> Hamgyong-pukto, South Hamgyong -> Hamgyong-namdo, North Hwanghae -> Hwanghae-pukto, South Hwanghae -> Hwanghae-namdo, Kangwon -> Kangwon-do, North Pyongan -> Pyongan-pukto, South Pyongan -> Pyongan-namdo, Ryanggang -> Ryanggang-do

-- IGEL 00:34, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. I've hardly ever heard anybody use the English (or even German) translated name. buk/nam-do seems to be as common as it is official. – Wikipeditor 17:55, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

South Korea is done. -- IGEL 17:06, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Not actually sure that applying this to North Korea would be such a good idea; usage seems rather different. -- Visviva 11:44, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] province update

[this and following section refactored by Appleby 07:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)] we need to update the province name guidelines: "South Jeolla" (current guideline) or "Jeollanam-do" (actual article title)? Appleby 22:17, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

The province articles were moved after some discussion -- perhaps 6 months ago -- on the basis of Wikipedia:Use common names, since the "South/North X" standard was never widely used outside of Wikipedia. The discussion is around here somewhere, I'm not sure where. Of course, the "South/North" form could be considered to follow Wikipedia:Use English, so it's a bit of a tossup. In any event, the conventions and categories should be made consistent with the article titles, or vice versa. -- Visviva 06:51, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Added: The province names discussion is on this very page, currently heading #12 (soon to be archived). -- Visviva 02:54, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

ok, so i will, if nobody else wants to, update family names as above & province name to current practice. Appleby 16:51, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed guidelines

need guidelines on mountains (Xsan, X-san, X Mountain, or Mount X?), rivers, islands, etc., which are now inconsistent. Appleby 16:44, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

the mountain/river/island thing probably needs more thought. i was surprised there isn't a definitive broader guideline, although various guideline pages make peripheral, contradictory comments. did i just miss an obvious guideline page? Appleby 16:51, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

No rush with this -- let's give it some time to play out, and post invites on the various Talk pages. I'm posting what seems to me to be the most obvious solution to each quandary; other proposals are most welcome. -- Visviva 02:51, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] given name

was it decided that personal names should be generally separated by a hyphen? Revised Romanization of Korean says in principle, no, but permitted. it seems a majority of existing article titles are hyphenated, even when not necessary for pronunciation disambiguation. what's the guideline? Appleby 22:17, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's been decided on principle, although we did have a discussion of the matter at some point. I tend to prefer the Xxx Yyy-zzz format for its clear declaration of syllables; however, I have to admit that the Yyyzzz version looks a little better.

The key thing, of course, is to have redirects pointing to the article from every likely alternate spelling. But I agree that we need to hash out a consistent standard, as duplicate articles have been cropping up much too often. Perhaps, since we're using RR, we should follow the examples in the government's 용례 사전? -- Visviva 06:51, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, originally the names were written without hyphens, one day someone inserted hyphens into all the names, and then the convention stuck. But I must say that it has always felt a little weird to use hyphens to type names on Wikipedia that seem to be usually written without a hyphen elsewhere. And something like "Kim Jong-il" is not romanised according to either romanisation schemes... -- KittySaturn 11:18, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

somebody, please, just make up our minds about default hyphenation of given names, toss a coin or something. Appleby 16:51, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] mountain

Existing practice: Varied, but tending to favor Xsan or X-san, see Category:Mountains of Korea

Tool: Template:Korean mountain names

Proposal A: Standardize to Xsan; add "Mountain" only for disambiguation (which is rarely necessary). No need to hyphenate. -- Visviva 02:51, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

sounds good. & consistent with Revised Romanization of Korean ("names for geographic features and artificial structures are connected to the placename: 설악산 → Seoraksan 해인사 → Haeinsa") Appleby 07:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I suggest 'Mount X' form. As I said at Talk:Baekdu Mountain#article title, move requested, 'Mount X' is the most common form in English. 'X Mountain' comes next and 'X-san' is the least common. --Kusunose 08:43, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure about that. For instance, "Mount Seorak" gets about 393 Google hits, while "Seoraksan" gets more than 37,000 Google hits. "Mt. Seorak" gets an impressive 12,600 Google hits, but that's still 1/3 of the total for "Seoraksan." This may vary considerably from mountain to mountain... However, the situation seems to be similar for Hallasan and Jirisan. -- Visviva 09:06, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Mm. I checked "Paektusan" and "Mount Paektu" again and numbers are 11,000 and 10,300 respectively. So it seems Xsan is the most common form. --Kusunose 09:44, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] island

Existing practice: Varied, but tending to favor X Island for polysyllabic names and Xdo or Xdo Island for monosyllabic names (Dokdo, Jindo Island). See Category:Islands of Korea.

Proposal A: Standardize to Xdo; add "Island(s)" only for disambiguation. No need to hyphenate. Create alternate-names template. -- Visviva 02:51, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

sounds good, & consistent with rr guideline. Appleby 07:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] river

Existing practice: Favoring X River for rivers and Xcheon for streams. See Category:Rivers of Korea

Proposal A: Continue with X River, Xcheon (Xch'on); create alternate-names template. -- Visviva 02:51, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

i wonder why rivers are treated differently. it'd be nice to be consistent, but x river does sound more right to me, & maybe there's a reason for the existing practice? Appleby 07:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] temple

Existing practice: Varied, but tending to favor Xsa, see Category:Buddhist temples in South Korea (sample is skewed; many of those were created very recently)

Tool: Template:Korean temple names

Proposal A: Standardize to Xsa; add "Temple" only for disambiguation. No need to hyphenate. -- Visviva 02:51, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

sounds good, & consistent with rr guideline. Appleby 07:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] county

I propose to move the articles of form "X County" (currently almost all counties in South Korea) to the form "X," except where disambiguation is needed.

Example: Cheongdo County --> Cheongdo

The existing convention arose out of prior Wikipedia practice; however, it's difficult to see why we should use "X County" when we don't use "X City" -- I think the only city at "X City" is Donghae City, due to the need for a dab page at Donghae. Objections? -- Visviva 02:51, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

this is all Revised Romanization of Korean has to say: "Syllables of Korean administrative units (such as do) are separated from the placename with a hyphen: 강원도 → Gangwon-do. One may omit terms “such as 시, 군, 읍”: 평창군 → Pyeongchang-gun or Pyeongchang, 평창읍 → Pyeongchang-eup or Pyeongchang." Appleby 07:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

should we drop the suffixes from all but provinces? as visviva said, cities already rarely have "-si", "-eup" and -"gun" are also examples of unnecessary suffixes. or is that too minimalistic, necessating too many disambiguation exceptions? Appleby 06:33, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I would favor keeping the suffixes for tertiary divisions (eup, myeon, dong) -- with obvious exceptions like Itaewon where Wikipedia:Use common names trumps other considerations. This is partly because of the need for disambiguation, especially for eup which double as the county seat. Also, in many cases, particularly for urban dong, there is no obvious "on-the-ground" entity which you could call by this name. I happen to live in a neighborhood called Jangjeon-dong, but I seldom hear anyone call it "Jangjeon." ... thinking about it now, I was probably wrong to put Duryu-dong at Duryu rather than Duryu-dong.

We drop the si and gun, I think, to avoid making those names unnecessarily obscure. But most tertiary divisions are obscure (though still eminently encyclopedic), and are hardly ever referred to in English except in addresses and the like, where the suffix is almost always retained. -- Visviva 07:11, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I also think the "county" could be dropped, as it seems that many counties are not that obscure. -- KittySaturn 11:21, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh I thought of a somewhat related thing. The "station" suffix, -yeok, in romanisations: I had changed e.g. 서울역 from Seoul-yeok to Seoullyeok to reflect the liaison in pronunciation, but is that a good idea? I don't think RR rules specify up to how non-administrative-division suffixes are to be romanised, but then perhaps it's sensible to follow the same rules (i.e. no assimilations). -- KittySaturn 15:19, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for being here to think about things like this. For my part, no matter how much I turn the issue over in my head, I can't think of anything to say about it at all. -- Visviva 08:49, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Korean name

Korean name is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 14:24, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice. Good friend100 21:43, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Diacritics in MR

The guidelines say:

except that ŏ, ŭ, and the apostrophe (') are not used in article titles, although they may be used in article bodies

Has no one else experienced the incredible annoyance of reading something written according to this guideline, and not being able to correlate between English and Korean sources due to the lack of decent transliteration? I think that where MR is used, the diacritics which it entails must be used too, although I think the exception in article titles is reasonable. --대조 | Talk 14:15, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, these are the naming conventions, so technically this page is concerned with article titles only. As the passage you quote says, diacritics "may" be used in the article body; the Manual of Style indicates that they should be used, at least when the article uses MR. However, I fear this is honored more in the breach than in the observance...

Actually I would like to revisit that provision, which (IMO) has long outlived its usefulness. The "no diacritics or apostrophes" provision was originally put in place for technical reasons (as I recall, it was once impossible to have a well-formed article title containing an apostrophe). However, those days are long behind us, and the existing guideline only encourages (nay, enforces!) sloppiness. I would suggest that the diacritics/apostrophe exception, quoted above, be stricken from the naming conventions. -- Visviva 15:42, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] North Korea

I'm not really satisfied with the current guidelines for North Korea-related articles. Much of the point of Wikipedia:Naming conventions is to make in-line linking straightforward. Setting different standards for the page name and its use in in-line text doesn't make much sense, and ends up creating a lot of gratuitous piping.

I'd like to replace the current standard with one of the following three:

A. Use strict 1939 McCune-Reischauer, including all diacritics and apostrophes (added: modified to match current standard North Korean pronunciation).

Good: A well-established existing system, reasonably unambiguous. Also matches a lot of existing article text.

Bad: A pain in the butt. (Especially for us folks on Korean OS's with poor diacritical support.) Will require a lot of page moves. Also, the finer points of MR are a matter of perpetual confusion.

B. Use the official North Korean system, i.e., McCune-Reischauer without diacritics but with H's (Nampho, Thaephodong, etc.) and other peculiarities.

Good: Official. After all, we follow the official South Korean system for other Korea-related topics.

Bad: Looks funny. Ambiguous; for example, under this system 은산군 and 운산군 are both romanized as Unsan.

C. Use strict 1939 McCune-Reischauer, without diacritics or apostrophes.

Good: Corresponds to widespread practice on the English-language web. Also matches most existing article titles.

Bad: Imposes a whole new system that is neither strict MR, nor RR, nor official. Shares ambiguity problems with option B.

Any of these, I think, would be an improvement. I personally lean towards option C per Wikipedia:Use common names and general convenience. In fact, that's what I've been following in my own recent edits, although if the consensus is against it I'll happily go back and change those. (Just to clarify: this would not affect MR in the name table at all). -- Visviva 06:29, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't like C at all because every o, u, k, t, p, ch, would impede the reading flow. Ideally, we'd have hangul in brackets after every Korean term that doesn't have its own article with namebox, but that's wishful thinking. In the real world, such spellings would be useless and cause people much busywork when they want to know a name's pronunciation or hangul spelling. (It's difficult enough the way it is now to find out whether some peculiarity was a mistake or not.)

A and B seem ok, or even a mix of B for adminisitrative units (or anything that has received its name from DPRK authorities) and A for everything else. I wish I knew whether the North is remotely as consistent in using its own romanisation system as the South is. There was a relatively recent North Korean paper available from some UN body on the standardisation of place names which is said to explain the Norkish system, hopefully with detailed guidelines, but it's not available online :( Wikipeditor 07:26, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

The mix you describe might make sense. Would that mean something like "Phyongsong" for Pyongsong but "Ch'ŏngch'ŏn River" for Ch'ongch'on River? And also MR for Korean cultural/historical terms? (or should we just leave that out for now?) -- Visviva 15:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

To first question: Yes.

To second question: I guess so – although in the very long term a more detailed guideline would be nice as to the correct romanisation for different kinds of stuff (sites, things unearthed, people [who may live in more than one place and for more than one year], abstract concepts) from the DPRK vs. from pre-DPRK North Korea vs. not from North Korea, when they appear in articles on a North Korean topic vs. in other articles. Wikipeditor 03:47, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Update: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) appears to be about to reach guideline status, and to provide a reasonable guide for us here. If I've read it correctly, that would require that we use the established English name where one exists (of course), and the official name where one can be determined. No guidance on what to do when no established name or official name exists, so this would be congruent with B or a BC or AB mixture. -- Visviva 15:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Added: That proposal would also seem to frown on rr|mr piping for general/SK topics mentioned in NK articles. Hmmm... -- Visviva 15:59, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Even official North Korean sources are half-hearted about the "h" in (B): [1] vs. [2]. It looks to me like a needless departure from the standard, i.e. it's a kind of randomized romanization. But mostly, I just don't think it looks right. Therefore, I suggest (A) in the first mention of a name, (C) in article titles, and (C) in article texts, but with the option of adding the apostrophes and diacritics. --Reuben 05:22, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

In long articles, it may be difficult to find a term's correctly-spelled first instance, but I'm fine as long as people are not discouraged from using a proper romanisation throughout the article. Wikipeditor 03:47, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Haven't read the geographic naming conventions yet, but I wonder whether say anything about problems of the "Mt. Xsan" type :) Wikipeditor 03:47, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, I guess A doesn't really mean 1939 McCune-Reischauer, but the variant that accounts for Nork standard pronunciation (for example, Rodong instead of Nodong)? Wikipeditor 06:19, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Yep, that's what I meant. -- Visviva 05:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Name order

Hi, I don't know much about Korean by any means, but the way Korean names are set up has been really confusing me. Mostly because, while Korean names are surname first like in Japanese, they do not follow the same guidelines (see WP:MOS-JA). Now, I'm not saying that a bunch of articles need to be moved to swapped the name, but I do think that it should be mentioned in the lead how the name is structured. For instance, Kim Jong-il could start off as:

Jong-il Kim, usually written surname first as Kim Jong-il, is...

The rest of the article would, of course, refer to him as "Kim Jong-il", since that's what everyone knows him as, English speaking or otherwise. Does this seem like an ok system?--SeizureDog 13:21, 10 March 2007 (UTC)