Wikipedia:WikiProject Korea/Romanization of Korean on Wikipedia

This essay serves as a companion to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Korea-related articles and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Korean). It provides detailed explanations of the choices related to romanization made in those guidelines (namely for when the explanations would be too lengthy), and also serves as an FAQ page.

The arguments in this page should not be interpreted as authoritative; this page just explains the current community consensus. When the MOS:KO or WP:NCKO change, this page should be updated to reflect the new consensus. This article should also ideally contain references for claims made, be discussed, and be challenged in order to improve robustness and usefulness.

Purpose

Our main goal is to make editing and reading Wikipedia easier for the average person.

Our guidelines and explanations are complicated and boring to most. You don't need to know all of it to be a good editor. These resources exist just to solve repetitive debates in advance and to standardize things.

Background

Main article: Romanization of Korean

Note: For abbreviations such as "RR" and "MR", see § Romanization systems in use on Wikipedia.

The romanization of Korean is unfortunately really complicated.

• Korean does not have a widespread standard romanization system.
  • Currently, North Korea, South Korea, South Korean English-language academia, international academia, linguists, South Korean English-language media, and the international media all promote different standards. Many organizations also have individual style guides that modify standard romanization practices. Many of these groups have also changed their preferred systems and guidelines over time.
    • Some have intense opinions on the merits of each romanization system, and refuse to use (or even acknowledge the legitimacy of) systems they dislike.
    • Academics and book authors sometimes pick and choose which romanization system to use based on personal preference (and many, even after nominally picking a system to use, romanize incorrectly, either by mistake or in order to reflect a perceived common practice).
  • Many Koreans still regularly use ad hoc romanizations.
  • Many dated or ad hoc spellings have become widespread and persistent.
    • Some Korean words with unusual romanizations have been adopted into the English language, like "chaebol".
  • On Wikipedia, extremely few people understand how any of the Korean romanization systems work in detail. A large portion of Korea-related Wikipedia articles still have romanization mistakes in them, especially in {{Infobox Korean name}}.
  • Outside of Wikipedia, a significant proportion of published works (even those by academics) have romanization mistakes in them.
    • Native Korean speakers often find RR and MR unintuitive, as the systems reflect pronunciation rules that many Korean speakers are not consciously aware of.
    • This popular romanization converter from Pusan National University even outputs incorrect romanizations.
  • By contrast, pinyin for Chinese and revised Hepburn for Japanese have become nearly universally accepted and there are far fewer mistakes in their application.
• The phonology of Korean, particularly because of its additional vowels and consonants, is not easily expressible using Latin letters.
  • Many systems have used diacritics to represent these other sounds. Notably, the breve (◌̆) is used for MR and is difficult to access on computers and phones. It is thus regularly omitted, which leads to ambiguity and confusion.
  • Other systems have used digraphs. Like this RR example: the "eo" in "Incheon" represents the single Korean vowel ㅓ ([ʌ]). Some argue these are unintuitive or unsightly.
• Both MR and RR have ambiguities.
  • For example, hyphenation in MR and in RR are flexible.
  • To fill these gaps and recommend standardized practice, we researched and weighed the following:
    1. Supplementary explanations and essays from relevant people that created the systems
    2. Common romanization practices in academia and public
    3. Wikipedia guidelines and policies

Romanization of Korean on Wikipedia

Since the first version of the MOS in 2004, there has been regular confusion and debate over how to handle all of these issues on Wikipedia. These discussions have often been repetitive and wasteful.

In 2024, WikiProject Korea wrote a complete rewrite of the MOS. This effort and its relevant research and argumentation is documented in this essay.

Basic principles

Our guidelines should abide by Wikipedia's standards, especially the Wikipedia:Manual of Style and Wikipedia:Article titles. Per those guidelines, we prioritize the reflection of current (not past or predicted future) romanization practices used in the majority of recent Wikipedia:Reliable sources, particularly sources that deal specifically with Korea and have significant impact (WP:COMMONNAME, WP:DIVIDEDUSE, WP:CRYSTALBALL).

As such, we try to avoid promoting romanization choices that we think are "better". That is not the job of Wikipedia: we do not lead, we follow. At the same time, we try to minimize how complicated our rules are. Unfortunately, the situation is fundamentally complicated.

Romanization systems in use on Wikipedia

We use the following romanization systems on Wikipedia:

• Revised Romanization of Korean ("RR")
  • For concepts whose significance is primarily post-1945, in southern/South Korea
• McCune–Reischauer ("MR"; the 1961 version)
  • For concepts whose significance is primarily pre-1945, or in post-1945 northern/North Korea
• Yale romanization
  • Allowed for linguistics examples

Why not use one romanization system for everything?

While tempting and this would be easier, this would go too far against our § Basic principles.

Why not use other systems?

We try to balance reflecting common practice and reducing complication. The systems we currently recommend are more than sufficient for most cases; asking users to learn more systems adds significant complication without adding much understanding.

Why use MR for pre-1945 topics?

International academic journals almost universally use MR when writing about Korean history. Practice in books seems to be more divided but still leaning MR, per § Romanizations used in books.

Why use 1945 as a dividing line for using RR?

Mid/late August 1945 was when the division of Korea occurred.

Other possible lines:

• 1948 (the establishment of North/South Korea)
  • Arguably less significant than the 1945 division. Little changed between 1947 and 1949, but 1944 to 1946 was a seismic change.
  • Similarly, dividing spellings for terms relating to the United States Army Military Government in Korea (1945–1948) and South Korea (1948–) seems relatively arbitrary. There was relatively clear continuity between both these entities.
• 2000 (the enactment of RR)
  • Without a doubt, less significant than the division of Korea. Notability is unlikely to change from 1999 to 2001.
  • Some recent writings use MR when talking about post-division South Korea.

Why use RR for South Korea?

RR is now widely used by the international and domestic English-language press for coverage of South Korea. South Korea's popular culture and soft power have boosted the use of the system. Books on contemporary South Korea also often employ the system.

Why use Yale romanization?

The international linguistics community still seems to widely use Yale. Restricting its use would mean asking our editors to convert Yale text in sources to either MR or RR; this is difficult to enforce, leaves room for errors, would be misrepresenting current practice, and adds complication.

How extensively or firmly Yale should be recommended is currently uncertain.

Why not use North Korea's romanization for North Korean articles?

North Korean romanization ("NKR") is used by the NK government and state media. It is also recommended by the AP Stylebook for people names and by NK News for general cases (see § Other style guidelines).

Arguments against using NKR:

• The international academic community widely uses standard MR when writing on North Korea.
• AP and NK News aren't consistent in their usage of NKR.
• It is based on MR, which it is also reasonably similar to.
• Minimizing the number of systems in use on Wikipedia.
  • This is currently weighted highly.
• Using standard MR has been the status quo since the first version of the MOS in 2004, and seemingly nobody has disputed it until 2024.

McCune–Reischauer

Why use the 1961 version of MR?

This version appears to be the most widely used. The 1961 paper is effectively a summary of the 1939 version, with minor updates to reflect more recent Korean phonology and spelling. It is missing some details that the original had (as it is a summary). We assume those details still apply; they have not been affected by the development of the Korean language.

How strictly the specifications of MR are followed seems to vary; some authors claim to use the system but romanize in ways that are either incorrect or recommended against in the original 1939 and 1961 papers.

Why not use the Library of Congress version?

This version appears to not have widespread adoption. It's also extremely complicated, with countless instructions for edgecases.

The Library of Congress version heavily focuses on word division in phrases and sentences. While that may be important when romanizing book titles in libraries (and for easier word-based searching in library databases), that is much less important on Wikipedia, where phrases and sentences are usually translated into English (though romanizations can also be given).

Hyphenation

The 1939 paper that introduced MR says the following about hyphenation:

in Korean, a given syllable may vary widely in pronunciation according to the nature of the other syllables in the word [...]. A simple example, the word Silla, will help to clarify the point. In Chinese, hsin 新 plus lo 羅 are pronounced Hsin-lo but in Korea, sin 新 plus na (la) 羅 are pronounced Silla. To hyphenate this name as Sil-la would imply that it is composed of two parts which individually are sil and la, which is obviously misleading.

There are many cases where there is a partial division does not seem great enough to justify writing them as separate words. It is for such cases that we have reserved the use of the hyphen; but we believe that on the whole it should be used as sparingly as possible. [Example: 연산군 → Yŏnsan-gun]

The 1961 summary paper on MR says the following about hyphenation:

The hyphen is reserved for subsidiary divisions within words, such as Tŏksu-gung (덕수궁), Haein-sa (해인사).

Reischauer, one of the namesakes of MR, expressed general distaste for the use hyphens for pronunciation-related matters. When the Japanese government introduced a Japanese romanization rule (1937) that employs a hyphen when the moraic n (ん) is followed by a vowel (including y), he wrote the following (excerpt from Rōmaji or Rōmazi (1940)):

Another change for the worse in Kokutei is the substitution of the hyphen for ' between the final n of one syllable and an initial vowel in the next syllable within a single word. The hyphen is best reserved for use in words which should be hyphenated on other than phonetic grounds.

It could be argued that the above is part of the reason why MR uses n'g (not n-g) when n and g are pronounced separately (e.g. 한글 Han'gŭl), despite the apostrophe also being used for strongly aspirated consonants. "Mun'gyŏng-si" is much easier to parse than "Mun-gyŏng-si"; the hyphen is more suitable for semantic division.

Optional spaces

The 1939 paper that introduced MR says the following about inserting optional spaces in the romanization that are not in the original Hangul:

In Romanizing sentences, book titles and the like, the problem of a correct division into words is important. It is difficult to define what is a word in any language, and the problem is particularly complicated in Korean where divisions have been traditionally made by syllables and by clauses. Therefore in Romanizing groups of words a division into units roughly comparable to those in European sentences should be made if the Romanization is to be intelligible to the average Occidental.

One can not lay down hard and fast rules for word divisions, and much depends on the special considerations and needs of each individual problem of Romanization.

The paper then gives some recommendations on space insertion:

• For native Korean terms, no space between verb stems and verb endings (e.g. 자다 ("to sleep") → chada and not cha ta)
• For native Korean terms, no space between nouns and postpositions (e.g. 꽃이 ("flower" + subject postposition) → kkoch'i and not kkot i)
• For other remaining native Korean terms (e.g. adjectives, adverbs, etc), attempt to follow spacing practices of English.
• For Sino-Korean words, recommendations are difficult; rely on experience, typical groupings of characters, and to maximize understanding to readers.

They provide this example:

한글 운동은 연산군 조에 이르러 큰 액운을 당하였다.
Han'gŭl undongŭn Yŏnsan-gun choë irŭrŏ k'ŭn aegunŭl tanghayŏtta.
(The Han'gŭl movement was placed in an extremely critical position during the reign of the ruler Yŏnsan.)

Common MR mistakes

• 시 should be romanized ⟨si⟩ (not ⟨shi⟩), per the original MR. ⟨sh⟩ only appears when romanizing 쉬 (⟨shwi⟩).
• Syllable-final ㄹ + syllable-initial ㅎ is ⟨rh⟩ (not ⟨lh⟩).
• The apostrophe only appears in ⟨ch'⟩, ⟨k'⟩, ⟨p'⟩, ⟨t'⟩, and ⟨n'g⟩. It does not appear elsewhere.
  • When ⟨n⟩ and ⟨g⟩ are pronounced separately, an apostrophe is added between them (i.e. ⟨n'g⟩); ⟨ng⟩ is not followed by an apostrophe.

Hangul	Correct	Incorrect
신라	Silla	Shilla
쉽다	shwipta	swipta
발해	Parhae	Palhae
연구	yŏn'gu	yŏngu
영어	yŏngŏ	yŏng'ŏ

Revised Romanization of Korean

Hyphenation

Main article: Revised Romanization of Korean § Hyphenation

For this essay's stance on hyphens in personal names, see § RR names.

In RR, hyphens can be either optional or mandatory.

• Optional hyphens are used in two scenarios:
  1. Disambiguating pronunciation (e.g. 해운대 Hae-undae)
  2. Between syllables of a given name (e.g. 홍길동 Hong Gil-dong)
• Mandatory hyphens are for separating an administrative unit (e.g. 평창군 Pyeongchang-gun)

In general, we recommend against the use of hyphens for disambiguating pronunciation. This seems to align with the explanations from the National Institute of Korean Language.

Also, mixed use of hyphens can be confusing. For example, in Hae-undae-gu, the first hyphen is for disambiguation in pronunciation, but the second one is for separating an administrative unit. Consistently excluding optional hyphens (i.e. Haeundae-gu) makes names more immediately recognizable.

Note that hyphenation in the names of geographic features, cultural properties, and man-made structures is prohibited.

For hyphenation in people names, see § RR names.

Optional spaces

While RR requires a space between family and given names, it does not officially comment on optional spaces.

Letter-by-letter transliteration

See also: Revised Romanization of Korean § Reversible variant

When reversibility is desired (namely in academic articles), RR officially allows for a letter-by-letter transcription. For example, 독립 would be rendered as "doglib" in the letter-by-letter transcription, whereas by its normal pronunciation spelling it'd be "dongnip".

In general, we discourage the use of such transcriptions. Arguments against using it:

• They are an alternate form of RR and less commonly used (thus making them less useful and recognizable to the majority of people).
• In any situation where they may have some benefit, the original Hangul could be added instead. Hangul is more recognizable than letter-by-letter RR.
• While it is tempting to try and advocate for our consistent use of this system because of its reversibility with Hangul and ease of use for people who know Hangul, remember our § Basic principles.

Romanization of people names

Why have these steps for WP:KOREANNAME?

Over the past 20 years on Wikipedia, there has been constant costly debate and confusion over how to weigh WP:COMMONNAME, personal preference of the subject, and systematic romanization for Korean names. These debates have often reached differing conclusions, and have created a confusing mess of inconsistent practice. We established these steps to hopefully reduce these debates and improve WP:TITLECON.

Note that this process was designed to consider all five WP:CRITERIA for titles:

• Recognizability – accounted for in all three steps. In the third step, we even chose to use a common modification of RR (hyphens in given names) to improve recognizability. WP:KOREANNAME is designed to match most common practice for various common subject matters and time periods.
• Naturalness – accounted for in all three steps. Same explanation for above.
• Precision – self-explanatory
• Concision – self-explanatory
• Consistency – accounted for mostly in the third step. First two steps yield exceptions, the third step defaults to a safe consistent practice.

Why ask for "widely used" WP:COMMONNAMEs in step 1?

Multiple reasons.

1. For cases when there are extremely few attestations in English, there are so many conflicting romanization practices that taking a small sample will likely yield inconsistent romanization (including possibly ad-hoc romanization), which hurts WP:TITLECON and potentially WP:RECOGNIZABILITY. We'd rather people turn to a default spelling to avoid those downsides.
2. When there is significantly divided use, while we'd love for if people really researched each concept to determine which names are 51% vs 49% more common, this is costly and people rarely want to engage in such research. So we give them an easy out by turning to a default practice.

MR names

The 1939 MR paper says this about people names:

In both two character surnames and two character given names the general rules of euphonic changes should be observed, and the two syllables should be written together... [For assimilating between surnames and given names,] disregard euphonic changes between surnames and given names or titles... [For the surname 李], 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.

We recommend following the above guidance; it also appears to be commonly followed in academia. Also, "Yi" is more likely to be the WP:COMMONNAME spelling, and is also arguably more readable than "I".

For hyphenation in names, we currently do not recommend in WP:KOREANNAME that hyphens be inserted. This is subject to change; it is not yet clear to us whether hyphenation or non-hyphenation of MR names is more dominant (some research documented in #Romanizations used in books).

RR names

Assimilated sound changes are not reflected in given names.

For given names, hyphens are officially discouraged by the National Institute of Korean Language and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. However, English-language press in both South Korea and abroad appear to widely use them. Per our § Basic principles, we choose to hyphenate.

On the official RR documentation, it says "Transcriptions of family names will be established additionally.", implying that they are planning to eventually establish additional guidelines on how to romanize family names. However, even into 2025, this hasn't seem to come to fruition. Since it has been already 25 years, this may actually never happen.

Common English spellings for South Korean surnames

For South Korean surnames in English-language text, if there's evidence of a widespread common spelling we recommend the use of that spelling.

We choose to do this instead of the alternative: defaulting to standard RR spellings if common name or personal preference are not known. Defaulting to RR may have some benefit in recognizability and consistency. However:

• For the surnames where almost all people use a non-RR spelling (e.g. Park for 박; Bak), we'd be wrong almost all of the time.
  • Per naturalness, people expect to see these spellings for those names, even if they're ad hoc.
• Few people seem to actually know how RR works in detail, meaning recognizability may be weak.

How widespread a surname spelling should be before we recommend it is not certain. We also only included the top N most common surnames in order to not make the table overly lengthy. Initial commonality threshold is 80%; no prejudice against lowering it or increasing N.

Surname spelling statistics

Note: if bolded, passes the 80% threshold and thus we recommend it. Many of the surnames that pass the threshold are already standard per RR; thus we don't go out of our way to recommend a modified spelling.

2011 passport statistics, ordered by most common in 2015

Surname (Hangul)	Spelling 1	Spelling 2	Spelling 3
김	Kim
이	Lee
박	Park
정	Jung (41.13%)	Jeong (32.17%)	Chung (15.38%)
최	Choi (88.51%)	Choe (10.20%)	Choy (0.24%)
조	Cho (69.85%)	Jo (27.95%)	Joe (0.89%)
강	Kang (95.93%)	Gang (3.39%)	Khang (0.17%)
장	Jang (74.76%)	Chang (24.46%)	Jhang (0.15%)
윤	Yoon (48.66%)	Yun (36.83%)	Youn (13.75%)
임	Lim (61.84%)	Im (26.44%)	Yim (6.21%)
신	Shin (86.71%)	Sin (12.43%)	Sheen (0.18%)
유	Yoo (38.15%)	Yu (28.12%)	You (18.44%)
한	Han (98.53%)	Hahn (1.34%)	Hann (0.05%)
오	Oh (97.08%)	O (2.14%)	Ou (0.18%)
서	Seo (77.16%)	Suh (16.97%)	Su (1.19%)
전	Jeon (54.48%)	Jun (25.01%)	Chun (10.42%)
권	Kwon (74.82%)	Gwon (9.30%)	Kweon (7.45%)
황	Hwang (95.34%)	Whang (2.80%)	Hoang (0.69%)
안	An (57.77%)	Ahn (39.89%)	Ann (1.90%)
송	Song (99.28%)	Soung (0.39%)	Shong (0.12%)
홍	Hong (99.53%)	Houng (0.35%)	Heung (0.02%)
양	Yang (99.06%)	Ryang (0.25%)	Yaung (0.22%)
고	Ko (59.75%)	Go (18.00%)	Koh (17.30%)
문	Moon (70.28%)	Mun (29.21%)	Mon (0.19%)
손	Son (83.93%)	Sohn (9.47%)	Shon (5.82%)
우	Woo (97.58%)	Wu (0.97%)	U (0.31%)

2007 examination of 63,000 passports

Surname (Hangul)	Spelling 1	Spelling 2	Spelling 3
김	Kim (99.3%)	Gim (0.6%)	Ghim (0.01%)
이	Lee (98.5%)	Yi (1%)	Rhee (0.2%)
박	Park (95.9%)	Bak (1.8%)	Pak (1.7%)
최	Choi (93.1%)	Choe (6.5%)	Choy (0.09%)
정	Jung (48.6%)	Jeong (37%)	Chung (9.2%)

This 2015 news article says that, for 정, a passport examination had 62.22% of people using "Jung" and 28.25% using "Jeong".

North Korean romanization

At present, we do not use North Korean romanization on Wikipedia except for cases of WP:COMMONNAME. We considered applying the rules of North Korean romanization for names to MR, but it was argued that doing so was too arbitrary and inconsistent.

Regardless, below is what North Korean romanization recommends for people names. We document this here for ease of access.

Spaces are given between the first and second names of a person and the first sounds of the names are written in capital letters and in the names of Chinese character origin, spaces are given between each letter. When the first sound of the second syllable becomes vocal, it is transcribed in a relevant voiceless letter.

e.g.

• 김꽃분이 Kim KKotpuni
• 박동구 Pak Tong Gu
• 안복철 An Pok Chŏl

Romanization of titles of works

Per MOS:NONENGTITLE, how titles are capitalized depends on the language. For works with Korean titles, it is widely recommended to use sentence case when romanizing. This is the common practice from The Chicago Manual of Style, which itself is widely used by Korean studies journals (see § List of style guidelines for Korean studies journals). For which romanization to use, we break with the practice of journals (which widely use MR) and recommend the use of whichever romanization system is appropriate for the main topic of the article.

Other names

Partial tautological names

One point of uncertainty is whether to use terms like "Gyeongbokgung Palace" ("gung" means "palace") or "Bulguksa Temple" ("sa" means "temple"). Beginning on January 1, 2013, the South Korean government body Cultural Heritage Administration began officially preferring that style. The Seoul Metropolitan Government also shares this preference. However, this practice has varying levels of adoption elsewhere and in various newspapers. For example, the Korea JoongAng Daily has explicitly rejected it.

In general, our naming conventions currently discourage the practice. Various Wikipedians have expressed distaste for it, as it seems repetitive if one speaks Korean and English. However, it has also been pointed out that such repetitions are not "incorrect" in linguistics, and are actually quite common elsewhere in the world.

Context parameter in Korean templates

This is an explanation of why the |context= parameter was removed from {{Infobox Korean name/auto}} and {{Korean/auto}}.

People have fiercely argued we should use various spellings of both "Hangul" and "Hanja". Some have even argued that different spellings should be used in different contexts. These debates have often reached differing conclusions, with various people dissatisfied each time.

Rather than ourselves participate in that debate, instead we will only use the spellings used by the titles of the respective articles ("Hangul" and "Hanja"). This decision is based on WP:COMMONNAME and WP:KO-CONSISTENT. If those articles ever change titles, we will follow the change.

Spellings for especially "Hangul" are not straightforward. "Hangul" is neither preferred by North Korea (which uses "Chosŏn'gŭl") nor by South Korea ("Hangeul"). Furthermore, the script went by a variety of inconsistent names even into the mid-20th century.

"Hanja" is the preferred spelling of South Korea, but not of North Korea, which prefers "Hancha".

Furthermore, what spellings should be used for articles like Korean Demilitarized Zone (relevant to North and South Korea) or Sejong the Great (no single clear name for the script during his lifetime, perhaps "Hunminjeongeum" or "Hunminjŏngŭm")?

Should our templates reflect all these nuances and have options to display all these various names for scripts? Would the tens of thousands of uses of these templates need to be verified to confirm they're using the exact terminology preferred by specific groups at specific times? Seems like too much work, debate, and minute editing over too little gain to readers.

In short, our decision avoids time-consuming busywork and need to relitigate old debates. We simply leave the debates to editors of the articles Hangul and Hanja, and always use whichever spellings they decide on.

References

Sources

• The University of Chicago Press Editorial Staff (2024). The Chicago Manual of Style (18th ed.). University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226817972.
• The Rules of Latin Alphabetic Transcription of Korean Language (PDF). Tenth United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names. North Korea. 19 July 2012. pp. 1–8 – via United Nations.
• McCune, George M.; Reischauer, Edwin O. (1939). "The Romanization of the Korean Language Based on Its Phonetic Structure". Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch. 29. Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch: 1–55.
• Lee, Ki-Moon; Ramsey, S. Robert (2011). A History of the Korean Language. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-66189-8.

Appendix

List of style guidelines for Korean studies journals

• The Journal of Korean Studies: [1]
• Korean Studies: [2]
• Korea Journal: [3]
• Acta Koreana: [4]
• North Korean Review: [5]
• Review of Korean Studies: [6]
• European Journal of Korean Studies: [7]
• International Journal of Korean History: [8]
• Seoul Journal of Korean Studies: [9]

Other style guidelines

• The Chicago Manual of Style (paywall)
  • 11.95

    McCune–Reischauer, however, in addition to being found in older sources, is also used as the basis of the Korean romanization table from the US Library of Congress and is the most widely used system in North America. A version of McCune–Reischauer is used as the official system in North Korea.

  • 11.96

    Hyphens are often inserted between two combined syllables to clarify pronunciation, as in the word jung-ang (중앙, “center/central”); however, this type of hyphen is rarely used in place-names, as can be seen in the name of the Jungang railway line. Hyphens are commonly used between syllables in Korean given names, as in Chang Wang-rok (장왕록), the name of the South Korean writer, whose given name would be strictly romanized as Wangrok (see also 8.18).

  • 11.97

    Although capital letters do not exist in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, they are introduced in romanized versions of these languages where they would normally be used in English. In hyphenated names, only the first element is capitalized in romanized Chinese, though both elements may be capitalized in Japanese (and are sometimes capitalized in Korean).

  • 11.98

    As in English, titles of books and periodicals are italicized, and titles of articles are set in roman and enclosed in quotation marks. The first word of a romanized title is always capitalized, as are many proper nouns (especially in Japanese and Korean)...
    [e.g.] Cho Nam-joo, 82 nyeonsaeng Gim Jiyeong [Kim Ji-young, born 1982]

• AP Stylebook (paywall)

  • The style and spelling of names in North Korea and South Korea follow each government’s standard policy for transliterations unless the subject has a personal preference. North Korean names are written as three separate words, each starting with a capital letter: Kim Jong Un. Use Kim on second reference. South Korean names are written as two names, with the given name hyphenated and a lowercase letter after the hyphen: Moon Jae-in. Use Moon on second reference. For South Korean place names, use the revised Romanization spellings introduced by the South Korean government in 2000: Incheon (formerly Inchon), Busan (formerly Pusan). In both Koreas, the family name comes first.

    — AP Stylebook, 55th edition (2020–2022)

  • Note: Its guidance for North Korean names is partly incorrect. North Korean names do not always use spaces (namely when the names are native Korean names).
  • Note: verified that, for names, hyphenation for SK and spacing for NK has existed since at latest 1996. The SK practice carried over, even past the promulgation of RR (in which hyphenation is discouraged).
• The Korea Times
  • User:grapesurgeon messaged a journalist from The Korea Times. They generally use North Korean romanization for North Korea-related topics, with the exceptions of "Gaeseong" and "Geumgang Mountain". Also use "Kim Jong-un" and not "Kim Jong Un".
• NK News
  • User:grapesurgeon emailed NK News and confirmed that their style guidelines ask for the use of North Korean romanization.

    We use North Korea's official romanization system for North Korean words and names (ex. Kim Jong Un), and South Korea's official romanization (revised romanization) for South Korean words (ex. Busan, not Pusan). However, we make exceptions to account for individuals' preferred way of romanizing their names, as well as for cases where a non-standard spelling is well established (ex. Syngman Rhee).

Stats

• MR 17 books have hyphens in names
• MR 16 books have no hyphens in names

MR

• Sejong the Great: The Light of Fifteenth Century Korea (1991) ed. by Young-Key Kim-Renaud
  • Note: pre-dates the enactment of RR
  • Hyphens in names and yes assimilation
• The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895-1910 (1995) by Peter Duus
  • Note: pre-dates the enactment of RR
  • Hyphens in names, generally. Assimilation unclear.
  • Examples: "Pak Jun-yang", "Yi Wŏn-kyun", "Yi Yun-yong", "Kim Ka-jin", "Ŏ Yun-jung", "Sŏ Kwang-bŏm" and more.
  • Possibly some mistakes? "Yi Kun-taek", "Kim Yong-chun".
• Culture and the State in Late Chosŏn Korea (1999) ed. by Jahyun Kim Haboush and Martina Deuchler
  • Note: pre-dates the enactment of RR
  • Names with no hyphens and yes assimilation
• From Stalin to Kim Il Sung, The Formation of North Korea, 1945-1960 (2002) by Andrei Lankov
• Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852–1912 (2002) by Donald Keene
  • Names with hyphens and no assimilation
• Crisis in North Korea (2005) by Andrei Lankov
  • names with hyphens and yes assimilation
  • "For consistency’s sake, the spelling follows the modern South Korean pattern in cases when it differs from the current North Korean spelling (e.g., Nodong sinmun, not Rodong sinmun; Yi, not Ri or Li). Consonants are shown vocalized when between vowels, but not at the beginning of words (a surname and a given name are treated as two different words)."
    • odd
• Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History (2005) by Bruce Cumings
  • names with hyphens and yes assimilation
• New Korean Cinema (2005; essays) edited by Chi-Yun Shin and Julian Stringer
  • names with hyphens and assimilation (I think). "Kim Kyu-dong", "Kuk-jŏng"
  • Even applies to post-1945 SK concepts.
  • Allows for COMMONNAME and common english translations of works.
  • Sentence case for proper nouns and titles of works.
  • "Kyŏngbok Palace", "Kyŏngju", "Pusan".
• The Imjin War (2005) by Samuel Jay Hawley
  • names with hyphens, not sure assimilation, no diacritics
• The War for Korea, 1945-1950 (2005)
  • No diacritics
• The Partition of Korea after World War II (2006)
  • names with no hyphens and yes assimilation
• Everlasting Flower: A History of Korea (2006) by Keith Pratt
  • names with no hyphens and yes assimilation
• Korea's Twentieth-Century Odyssey (2007) by Michael E. Robinson
  • names with no hyphens and yes assimilation
• Japanese Assimilation Policies in Colonial Korea (2009) by Mark Caprio
  • names with no hyphens and yes assimilation
• Primitive Selves: Koreana in the Japanese Colonial Gaze, 1910-1945 (2010) by Everett Taylor Atkins
  • names with hyphens and no assimilation
  • "Kim Wŏn-gŭk" is I think mistakenly assimilated
• A History of Korea: From Antiquity to the Present (2010) by Michael Seth
  • Uses the Library of Congress system
  • Lunar calendar dates for pre-modern
• History of the Korean Language (2011) by Ki-Moon Lee and S. Robert Ramsey
  • names with no hyphens and yes assimilation
  • Uses Yale for linguistics, else MR
• The Korean Alphabet, Its History and Structure (2011) edited by Young-Key Kim-Renaud
  • names with no hyphens and yes assimilation
• Brokers of Empire: Japanese Settler Colonialism in Korea, 1876–1945 (2011) by Jun Uchida
  • names with hyphens and yes assimilation
• SamulNori: Contemporary Korean Drumming and the Rebirth of Itinerant Performance Culture (2012) by Nathan Hesselink
  • names with no hyphens and yes assimilation
• Park Chung-Hee: From Poverty to Power (2012) by Chong-Sik Lee
  • names with hyphens and no assimilation
  • he makes romanization and translation mistakes relatively frequently; in the appendix he makes an effort to explain RR but gets it incorrect, claims Park Chung Hee's name would be romanized "Bag Jeong Hee"; clearly incorrect compared to the preferred "Bak Jeonghui" and less desired "Bak Jeong-hui"
• The Real North Korea (2013) by Andrei Lankov
  • names with hyphens and yes assimilation
• Fighting for the Enemy: Koreans in Japan's War, 1937-1945 (2013) by Brandon Palmer
  • names with hyphens and yes assimilation
• Assimilating Seoul: Japanese Rule and the Politics of Public Space in Colonial Korea, 1910–1945 (2014) by Todd A. Henry
  • names with hyphens and yes assimilation
• Zainichi Literature: Japanese Writings by Ethnic Koreans (2018), multiple authors
  • names with no hyphens and yes assimilation (I think? Not explicitly stated, sometimes possible common name variations)
• Sovereignty Experiments: Korean Migrants and the Building of Borders in Northeast Asia, 1860–1945 (2019) by Alyssa M. Park
  • names with no hyphens and yes assimilation
• Rediscovering Korean Cinema (2019), ed. by Sangjoon Lee
  • names with hyphens and yes assimilation
  • "The romanization of Korean names in this volume follows the McCune-­ Reischauer system, which is the academic standard endorsed by the Library of Congress. Exceptions to this rule are a handful of names (notable filmmakers and political leaders) whose spellings are known to English-­ speaking readers,
  • Sentence case for titles of works, title case for proper nouns (Koryŏ Yŏnghwa Hyŏp'oe)
• Korean: A Linguistic Introduction (2020) by Sungdai Cho, John Whitman
  • Uses Yale for linguistics, else MR
  • names with no hyphens and yes assimilation
  • appears to use title case for titles of works...
• Yi Sang: Selected Works (2020) by various
  • names with hyphens and no assimilation, inconsistent and mistakes
• Korea 1905-1945: From Japanese Colonialism to Liberation and Independence (2021) by Ku Daeyeol
  • names with no hyphens and inconsistent assimilation, leaning towards no assimilation
  • frequent romanization mistakes
• Korea: A History (2022) by Eugene Y. Park
  • names with no hyphens and yes assimilation
  • he talks about us "It may be helpful for readers to know that for the most part, English-language Wikipedia automatically converts the McCune-­Reischauer spelling of a search term—­with or without diacritical marks and apostrophes—­to the Revised Romanization of Korean spelling used in South Korea (for example, Inch’ŏn is converted to Incheon), unless the word has to do with North Korea. North Korea generally uses McCune-­Reischauer spellings, without diacritical marks or apostrophes (for example, Pyongyang instead of P’yŏngyang)."
• City of Sediments: A History of Seoul in the Age of Colonialism (2023) by Se-Mi Oh
  • names with hyphens and yes assimilation
• The Other Great Game: The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia (2023) by Sheila Miyoshi Jager
  • names with hyphens and yes assimilation
• The Red Decades: Communism as Movement and Culture in Korea, 1919–1945 (2023) by Pak Noja
  • names with no hyphens and yes assimilation
• The Three Kingdoms of Korea: Lost Civilizations (2024) by Richard D. McBride II
  • names with no hyphens and yes assimilation
• Korean Sinitic Poetry from Ancient Times to 1945: Si in the East (2024) ed. by Jang Wu Lee, David R. McCann, Ji-Eun Lee
  • names with no hyphens and yes assimilation

RR

• The Land of Scholars: Two Thousand Years of Korean Confucianism (2006) by Kang Jae-eun
  • names with no hyphens and no assimilation
  • Romanization mistakes; "Kim Yu-shin" instead of correct "Kim Yu-sin". "Choe Mal-li" instead of "Choe Man-li"
  • Surnames use common spellings, like "Kim" and "Shin"
• Joseon's Royal Heritage: 500 Years of Splendor (2011)
  • Names with hyphens, unclear assimilation
  • Title case for romanized titles of works (Joseon Wangjo Sillok)
  • "Mt. Manisan" but not "Gyeongbokgung Palace"; just "Gyeongbokgung".
• Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Beliefs (2013) by the National Folk Museum of Korea
  • Names with hyphens in them, no assimilation, and yes surname conversions, although unclear if gotten spellings from people. Seems to be consistent RR.
  • Strange practices for admin districts; 경상남도 → "Southern Gyeongsang Province" in body and "Gyeongsangnam-do" in photo credits.
  • Call mountains "Mt. X", no "san"
• Korean History in Maps: From Prehistory to the Twenty-First Century (2014) by Michael Shin
  • names with no hyphens and yes assimilation
• Korean Royal Palace: Changdeokgung by Yi Hyang-woo (2015)
  • names with hyphens and no assimilation
  • no surname conversion for premodern people (i.e. they use "Yi", "Bak", but use "Park" for modern people)
  • mistakes in romanization; "gweolnaegaksa" instead of correct "gwollaegaksa", "Mun-shik" instead of correct "Mun-sik"
  • book was translated from Korean
• Brief Encounters: Early Reports of Korea by Westerners (2016) by Brother Anthony and Robert Neff
  • names with hyphens, can't tell assimilation
• Anarchism in Korea: Independence, Transnationalism, and the Question of National Development, 1919–1984 (2016) by Dongyoun Hwang
  • names with no hyphens, no assimilation, and no surname conversion (except for I → Yi)
• King Sejong the Great: The Everlasting Light of Korea (2018; second edition), ed. Kim Jae-Woong
  • Kind of a promotional-y book, not really a serious scholarly work
  • inconsistent hyphens in names; "Yi Gye-jeon", "Yeon Sajong"'. Sometimes hyphens in mononyms, sometimes not. "Prince Pyeong-won" and "Princess Jeongso"
  • Incorrect romanization: "Choi Chiwun".
  • surname conversion: "Shin Sang", "Yi Seong-gye" "Park Yeon".
• Reading North Korea (2020) by Sonia Ryang
  • names with hyphens, can't tell assimilation.
• Samsung Rising (2020) by Geoffrey Cain
• A History of Korea (2022) by Kyung Moon Hwang
  • no hyphens in names. Uses common spellings for some but not all surnames: Kim, Shin, but not Yi → Lee or Choe → Choi etc. For non-people, has exceptions for common name.
• Passcode to the Third Floor (2024) by Thae Yong-ho, translated by Robert Lauler
  • Even for NK topics.

Yale

• The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context (2006) by Jae Jung Song
  • Yale except for proper nouns with established spellings.
  • No hyphens in given names.
• The Handbook of Korean Linguistics (2019) ed. by Lucien Brown and Jaehoon Yeon
  • Uses Yale for linguistics/language, MR for Korean history topics, RR for SK place names, and NKR for NK place names.

Misc

• So Far from the Bamboo Grove by Yoko Kawashima Watkins (1986)
  • Fictionalized autobiography.
  • People names are ad-hoc/common spelling romanization ("Hee Wang", "Lee", "Syngman Rhee"), place names are consistently MR.
• Historical Origins of Korean Politics (2005) by Jin Duk-kyu
  • Ad-hoc, strange mix of practice. "Sin Chae-ho", "Lee Seung-man", "Kim Ku" on the same page. Next page uses "Chosŏn", "Kkŏk-Ryong". "Tan-gun", sentence case and MR for titles of works. In general seems to lean MR, but it's not consistent. Some ad-hoc romanizations mixed in, like "Keumwa".
• Korea: The Impossible Country (2012) by Daniel Tudor
  • Ad-hoc, leans mostly RR. Uses "Shilla" and "Koryo" in the same sentence. Hyphens in names.
• Pachinko (2017) by Min Jin Lee
  • Ad-hoc romanizations, leans a little RR
• Isidore: The Miracle of Jeju, Korea (2017)
  • Translated from orig Korean, ad-hoc romanizations, poor prose (possibly from the original text and not due to the translator)
• Koreans in Transnational Diasporas of the Russian Far East and Manchuria, 1895–1920 (2021) by Hye Ok Park
  • Ad-hoc, rare for academic book "Therefore, I have chosen to transcribe names and words as they are pronounced in an everyday Korean language... for example, Hamgyongdo (咸鏡道) and Baik-du-san (白頭山)"
• Korea: A New History of South and North (2023) by Victor Cha; Ramon Pacheco Pardo
  • Ad-hoc mixture of RR, MR, common name, and ad-hoc romanizations. Because it covers recent South Korea, the romanizations aren't particularly surprising and often resembles what Wikipedia does.
  • "The book at hand uses something of a mishmash of different standardized Romanization techniques. For names and places that will be familiar to many readers, such as “Kim Il-sung,” “Kim Dae-jung,” and “Pyongyang,” Revised Romanization is used. For names of people and places less familiar to the casual observer, Revised Romanization is mostly employed, with some use of McCune-Reischauer Romanization"
• Rebranding North Korea: Changes in Consumer Culture and Visual Media (2025) by Immanuel Kim
  • Combination of MR, RR, and NKR. NKR for North Korean places, proper nouns, and people names. RR for South Korean (if RR is attested to being used for them) people names. Everything else MR