Your name,
in Hangul.

What is read, in what order

Each word of the name is tried against the following, in this order. A word in Japanese kana is written kana by kana, with a long vowel written once — the usual way to put a Japanese name into Hangul — so ゆうき comes out as 유키.

In a name of two words or more, a Korean family name such as Kim, Park or Choi is written the way it is in Korea: Grace Park is 그레이스 박. Lee is the one exception and stays 리, the English sound, because a Korean Lee will already know how their own name is written.

Common English given names and family names come from a list of 889 spellings, each the Hangul seen most often in Korean subtitles, news and fan writing: Jessica is 제시카, Carter 카터, Smith 스미스. Where Korean usage is split, the commoner spelling is the one listed.

Romaji that is not on the list and splits cleanly into Japanese syllables is read as a Japanese name: Sakura is 사쿠라, Satou 사토, Watanabe 와타나베. On the Japanese page every word is tried as romaji first. On this page a short word ending in a consonant and an e (Dane), a word with ea, ee or oa, or one with a soft g is left to the English rules instead.

Anything else is spelled by sound, by the rules below. There is no randomness and no language model, and the conversion happens in your browser, so the same spelling always gives the same Hangul.

The sound rules

These are for English names the list does not have. A final e is not said and makes the vowel before it long, so Tate is 테이트. An r after a vowel is not written, so Kirk is 커크. A c before e or i and a g before e are soft: Joyce is 조이스, Dodge is 도지.

An unstressed last syllable is written with ㅓ, the way Korean writes English: Pemberton is 펨버턴. After b, c, d, g, k, p, s or t, an l is split across two syllables as Korean spelling does, so Buckley is 버클리. A doubled consonant is read once, and th shares its letter with s: Thornton is 손턴.

The rules can only see the spelling, not which syllable is stressed. Delaney is said de-LAY-nee in English, but the rules give 델라니 where a Korean writer would put 덜레이니. That gap is why a name on the list is always taken from the list first.

Where it cannot be exact

Hangul has fewer letters than English has sounds in a few places. b and v share a letter, as do l and r, and th and s; f and p share one at the start of a syllable. Ben and Ven are both 벤, so the Hangul cannot be turned back into the spelling you typed.

Some spellings are said differently by different people: Jean is 진 in English and 장 in French. The list can hold only one, so if yours is said differently, your way is the right spelling.

Kanji are not converted, because a kanji name has no single reading to trust; type it in kana or romaji instead. The field takes 40 characters, and inside, the name is cut at 80 characters and six words.

How far this goes

This is not an official romanization run backwards, and it is not a translation of what a name means. It is a good spelling for a label in a notebook, something to practise on early in learning the language, or a line to show someone. It is not built to decide the name on a document or the spelling on a business card. If a Korean speaker who knows you writes your name differently, use theirs.

The name you type is never used for a chart. No birth date and no birth time are asked for, and this page does not load any part of the chart engine. The link to the saju reading below the result carries nothing with it either.