Korean Names: 성 First, 이름, 씨 vs 님, and the Vocative -아/-야

A Korean name is structured — and addressed — by rules English speakers cannot guess. The family name comes first, a bare given name is almost never used for an adult, and simply calling out to a friend requires a grammatical particle that changes shape depending on the last sound of their name. Get these wrong and you sound, at best, like a tourist; at worst, curt or overfamiliar. This page lays out how names are built and how to say them to someone's face.

성 comes first, then 이름

A full Korean name is 성 (family name) + 이름 (given name), in that order — the reverse of English. In 김민수, 김 is the surname and 민수 the given name. So the first element you read is the family name, not the personal one. This trips up learners constantly: seeing 김민수 on a name tag, an English speaker's instinct is to call him "Kim," treating the first written word as a first name — but 김 is his family name.

Korean family names are a short list — 김, 이, 박, 최, 정 (romanized customarily as Kim, Lee, Park, Choi, Jung) cover a huge share of the population — while given names are usually two syllables and highly varied. One nice detail for the names page: those customary spellings (Kim, Lee, Park) diverge from strict Revised Romanization (which would give Gim, I, Bak), because families romanized their names generations ago and kept the old spellings on passports and business cards.

성함 — the honorific word for "name"

The plain word for "name" is 이름, but when you ask a respected person their name, you swap in the honorific noun 성함. This belongs to a small set of nouns that have a separate high-register form: 나이 → 연세 (age), 밥 → 진지 (meal), 집 → 댁 (home). Using 성함 is how you ask a stranger or an elder their name politely; the usual full formula is 성함이 어떻게 되세요?

Compare the honorific noun 성함 and its cousins 연세 for age for the wider pattern.

씨 vs 님 — how to attach respect to a name

You almost never call an adult by a bare given name. Instead you attach a suffix. 씨 goes on a name — a full name (김민수 씨) or a given name (민수 씨) — and marks polite respect among equals: colleagues, classmates, mild acquaintances. 님 sits higher and attaches to titles and roles (선생님, 사장님, 부장님), or to a full name in service and formal contexts (홍길동 님).

There is a sharp trap here: 씨 on a bare surname is not polite. 김 씨 said to someone reads as curt, even demeaning — the way a foreman might bark a worker's family name. To use 씨 respectfully, put it on a given name (민수 씨) or a full name (김민수 씨). (Note the difference from the descriptive 김 씨예요 above, where you are talking about "a Mr. Kim" in the third person — that is fine; it is the face-to-face vocative use of surname + 씨 that offends.) The full sorting of 씨, 님, and 선생님 covers the height differences.

The vocative -아/-야: calling out to someone close

When you call out to a close junior or friend by name — the way English tacks nothing onto "Minsu!" — Korean adds a vocative particle, and it harmonizes with the last sound of the name:

• -야 after a vowel-final name: 민수 → 민수야, 유나 → 유나야.
• -아 after a consonant-final name: 민혁 → 민혁아, 지훈 → 지훈아.

This is the same batchim-driven alternation you see across Korean grammar (은/는, 이/가): a vowel form and a consonant form, chosen by what the previous syllable ends in. The vocative is banmal — reserved for people you are genuinely close to or clearly senior to. Aiming it at someone you just met is jarringly overfamiliar.

돌림자 — the shared generational syllable

One more piece of Korean naming worth recognizing: in many families, siblings and same-generation cousins share one syllable of their two-syllable given names — the 돌림자 ("rotating character"), assigned by generation in the family genealogy. If two brothers are named 민수 and 민호, the shared 민 is their 돌림자, marking them as one generation. It is why Korean siblings' names often rhyme in a fixed spot.

Common Mistakes

1. Treating the first written syllable as the given name. The surname comes first; do not put the given name before it in English word order.

2. Addressing a superior with 씨 on the surname. 김 씨 to someone you respect is curt; use their title + 님.

3. Botching the vocative harmony. -야 goes after a vowel, -아 after a consonant — not the reverse.

4. Using a bare given name with an adult acquaintance. Bare 민수 clashes with polite speech; add 씨.

Key Takeaways

• Names are 성 (family) + 이름 (given) — surname first, the reverse of English.
• 성함 is the honorific "name" (like 연세 for age); ask with 성함이 어떻게 되세요?
• 씨 attaches to a name among peers (민수 씨, 김민수 씨) — never a bare surname as address; 님 attaches to titles/roles (선생님, 사장님) and full names in service (홍길동 님).
• The vocative -아/-야 calls out to close juniors: 야 after a vowel (민수야), 아 after a consonant (민혁아). It is banmal.
• 돌림자 is the shared generational syllable that marks siblings and cousins of one generation.