Seon (Korean name)

Seon, also spelled Sun, is an uncommon Korean family name, as well as an element in Korean given names. Its meaning differs based on the hanja used to write it.

Seon
Hangul
선
Hanja
Revised RomanizationSeon
McCune–ReischauerSŏn

Family name

As a family name, Seon may be written with either of two hanja, one meaning "to announce" (宣) and the other meaning "first" (先). Each has one bon-gwan: for the former, Boseong, Jeollanam-do, and for the latter, Jinseong, Jinju, Gyeongsangnam-do, both in what is today South Korea.[1] The 2000 South Korean census found 38,849 people with these family names.[2] In a study by the National Institute of the Korean Language based on 2007 application data for South Korean passports, it was found that 60.7% of people with this surname spelled it in Latin letters as Sun in their passports, while another 39.2% spelled it as Seon.[3]

People with this family name include:

  • Sun Dong-yeol (born 1963), South Korean baseball player
  • Sun Mi-sook (born 1968), South Korean volleyball player
  • Sun So-eun (born 1988), South Korean swimmer
  • Sun Yein (born 1996), stage name Sunyoul, South Korean singer, member of UP10TION
  • Sun Mu, 20th-century Korean painter
  • Sun Mi (born 1992), South Korean singer. Changed her name to Lee Sun-mi

Given name

There are 41 hanja with the reading "seon" on the South Korean government's official list of hanja which may be registered for use in given names; they are listed in the table at right.[4]

People with the single-syllable name Seon include:

  • Seon of Balhae (fl. 818–830), 10th King of Balhae
  • Kim Seon (fl. 10th century), minor lord of the early Goryeo Dynasty
  • Jeong Seon (1676–1759), Joseon Dynasty landscape painter
  • Sunwoo Sun (born Jung Yoo-jin, 1975), South Korean actress
  • Chloe Kim (Korean name Kim Seon, born 2000), American snowboarder of Korean descent

Given names containing this element include:

See also

References
  1. "한국성씨일람" [List of Korean surnames]. Kyungpook National University. 2003-12-11. Retrieved 2013-10-30.
  2. "성씨인구분포데이터" [Family name population and distribution data]. South Korea: National Statistics Office. Archived from the original on 2013-11-01. Retrieved 2013-05-28.
  3. 성씨 로마자 표기 방안: 마련을 위한 토론회 [Plan for romanisation of surnames: a preparatory discussion]. National Institute of the Korean Language. 25 June 2009. p. 61. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
  4. "인명용 한자표" [Table of hanja for use in personal names] (PDF). South Korea: Supreme Court. Retrieved 2013-10-17.
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