Letter Names & Dictionary Order (가나다순)

Knowing how a letter sounds is not the same as knowing its name. Just as English "double-u" is the name of the letter that spells the sound /w/, each Korean letter has a fixed name used for three everyday tasks: spelling a word aloud (on the phone, to a clerk), reciting the alphabet, and — the big one — looking words up in a paper dictionary, where entries are ordered by 가나다순 (ganada order), Korean's version of alphabetical order. Skip the names and you can still read; but you cannot spell your own name over the phone, and a dictionary becomes unusable.

The naming template: the sound at both ends

Most consonant names are built from a single clever template:

[consonant + ㅣ] + [ㅡ + consonant as batchim]

The first syllable puts the consonant at the start (as an onset, with the vowel 이); the second syllable puts the same consonant at the end (as a batchim, after the vowel 으). So the name literally drills the letter in both of its positions. Take ㄴ: 니 (ㄴ + ㅣ) + 은 (ㅡ + ㄴ) = 니은. Or ㅁ: 미 + 음 = 미음. Say the name and you have pronounced the letter as an onset and as a batchim.

Notice that 이응 (the name of ㅇ) demonstrates the letter's own split personality in miniature: 이 has a silent onset ㅇ, and 응 ends in the batchim ㅇ [ŋ] — silent on top, [ŋ] on the bottom, exactly as the letter behaves everywhere.

The three irregular names you must memorize

Three consonants break the template, and there is no logic to rescue you — you simply learn them:

The reason is historical. The scholar Choe Sejin (최세진) fixed these names in a 1527 primer, glossing each with a Chinese character that had the right sound. For ㄴㅁㅂ etc. a suitable character existed, but for the syllables 윽, 읃, 읏 none did — so he borrowed the nearest available characters (役 for 역, and native-reading glosses for 귿 and 옷), and those approximations stuck. The takeaway is honest: 기역, 디귿, 시옷 are just facts to memorize, not patterns to derive.

Tense letters: just add 쌍-

The five doubled (tense) consonants are named by prefixing 쌍- ("twin / a pair") to the base name. Nothing else changes.

Vowel names: just the sound

Vowels are the easy half: a vowel's name is simply its sound. ㅏ is named 아, ㅑ is 야, ㅓ is 어, ㅗ is 오, ㅜ is 우, ㅡ is 으, ㅣ is 이, and so on. There is no template and nothing to memorize beyond the sounds you already know from the basic vowels.

가나다순: Korean dictionary order

To look up a word, you need Korean's collation order. It runs consonant → vowel → batchim, each with its own fixed sequence.

Onset consonant order (19 letters), with each tense letter placed right after its plain base:

ㄱ ㄲ ㄴ ㄷ ㄸ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅃ ㅅ ㅆ ㅇ ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ

Vowel order (21 letters), beginning:

ㅏ ㅐ ㅑ ㅒ ㅓ ㅔ ㅕ ㅖ ㅗ ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅛ ㅜ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟ ㅠ ㅡ ㅢ ㅣ

A word is sorted first by the onset of its first syllable, then by that syllable's vowel, then by its batchim — and a syllable with no batchim sorts before any syllable that has one. Because the batchim is ranked using the same consonant order, 간 (batchim ㄴ) comes before 강 (batchim ㅇ), since ㄴ precedes ㅇ.

Worked example — put these four in dictionary order: 다, 가, 라, 나. Sort by onset: ㄱ < ㄴ < ㄷ < ㄹ, giving 가, 나, 다, 라. Now three that share an onset and vowel but differ in batchim: 감, 강, 간. Rank the batchim: ㄴ < ㅁ < ㅇ, giving 간, 감, 강.

The recital most Koreans learn as children runs the consonants through the vowel ㅏ — the equivalent of singing the ABCs:

Spelling a name aloud combines everything on this page: you name each letter in order, top to bottom, onset then vowel then batchim.

A note on North Korea (regional)

North Korea reformed both the names and the order. The three irregulars are regularized to fit the template — ㄱ is 기윽 (giyeuk), ㄷ is 디읃 (dieut), ㅅ is 시읏 (sieut) — and the collation order differs: the five doubled consonants are grouped together at the end of the consonant sequence rather than interleaved after each plain base, and a soundless initial ㅇ is given its own separate late position. So a dictionary printed in Pyongyang sorts words in a noticeably different order from one printed in Seoul. (regional: North Korea) — the South Korean names and 가나다순 above are the standard for TOPIK and virtually all learning materials.

Common Mistakes

1. "Regularizing" the three irregular names. By the template, ㄱ should be 기윽 — but South Korean standard is 기역. Saying 기윽 / 디읃 / 시읏 marks you as either guessing or using North Korean names.

2. Botching a regular name. The template has two syllables, not one: ㅁ is 미음, not ×음 or ×므. Give it both the onset-이 syllable and the batchim-으 syllable.

3. Naming a tense letter without 쌍-. ㄲ is 쌍기역 ("twin ㄱ"), never ×두기역 ("two ㄱ") or ×된기역.

4. Sorting by the wrong batchim rank (or ignoring the batchim). Same onset and vowel? The batchim decides, using the consonant order — so 간 precedes 강.

Key Takeaways

• Every letter has a name used to spell aloud, recite the alphabet, and order a dictionary.
• Consonant names follow [consonant + ㅣ] + [ㅡ + consonant] (니은, 미음, 비읍), drilling the letter as an onset and a batchim.
• Memorize the three irregulars: ㄱ = 기역, ㄷ = 디귿, ㅅ = 시옷. Tense letters add 쌍- (쌍기역). Vowel names are just their sounds.
• 가나다순 sorts by onset → vowel → batchim; no-batchim sorts first, and the batchim uses the consonant order (간 before 강).
• North Korea uses regularized names (기윽, 디읃, 시읏) and a different order — but South Korean 가나다순 is the standard you will use.