Dokgo 독고 — Korean last name
Is Dokgo a Korean last name?
Yes. Dokgo (Hangul: 독고, Hanja: 獨孤) is a Korean family name recorded in the 2015 South Korean census with 502 holders, making it the #132 most common of the 191 surnames counted. Roughly one in every 99,015 South Koreans is a Dokgo. It is one of the rarest surnames in Korea — fewer than a thousand people carry it.
How to write Dokgo in Korean
In Hangul, Dokgo is written 독고. Its Hanja (Chinese character) is 獨孤. Unlike many Korean surnames, Dokgo has a single Hanja form, so every Dokgo in Korea shares the same character.
What does Dokgo mean?
The character 獨孤 means lone orphan. As with most Korean surnames, the meaning comes from the Chinese character rather than from the Korean sound, so it says something about how the name was first written down (often a place, a virtue, an object or a Chinese dynasty) rather than describing the family. Koreans rarely think about the literal meaning of a surname in daily life, but it matters for genealogy and for choosing given names that pair well with it.
Major Dokgo clans (bon-gwan)
Korean surnames are subdivided by bon-gwan — the ancestral hometown of the clan founder. Two people named Dokgo from different bon-gwan are considered unrelated. The best-known Dokgo clans are: Namwon Dokgo. The place name comes first (for example "Gimhae Kim" means the Kim clan whose founder settled in Gimhae).
How common is Dokgo?
Dokgo is ultra-rare Korean surname. Just above it in the rankings is Pyung (515) and just below it is Nae (374). For comparison, Kim, the most common surname, has 10,689,967 holders. All figures come from Statistics Korea's 2015 Population and Housing Census, which only counts surnames held by five or more people.
Spellings and romanization
Dokgo is the spelling most Korean families use on passports and in English. The official Revised Romanization (used by the South Korean government since 2000) is Dokgo, and the older McCune–Reischauer system gives Tokko. Other spellings you will see in real life include Dokko, Dockko, Dogko, Dockgo, Dohkgoh. The variety exists because Korean passport rules let each family choose its own romanization, so spellings drifted over generations of emigration; in Korean, every one of these is the same 독고.
How to pronounce Dokgo
Dokgo (독고) is pronounced roughly as the Revised Romanization "Dokgo" reads, with even stress on each syllable — Korean does not stress one syllable over another the way English does. Vowels are pure and short: "eo" is the "u" in "sun", "eu" is a tight "oo" with unrounded lips, and "ae" rhymes with "day".
Is Dokgo Chinese or Korean?
Both, in a sense — the character is shared, the family is not. Korean surnames were written with Chinese characters for over a thousand years, so nearly every Korean surname has a Chinese (and Vietnamese) reading: 獨孤 is Dúgū in Mandarin and Độc Cô in Vietnamese. A Korean Dokgo and a Chinese family with the same character are not related; they simply adopted the same character at different times and places. If someone spells their name "Dokgo" they are almost certainly Korean, because the Chinese and Vietnamese romanizations look different. See our full guide to Korean vs Chinese last names.
Related Korean surnames
Frequently asked questions about Dokgo
Is Dokgo a Korean or Chinese last name?
Dokgo as spelled is Korean (독고). The Hanja 獨孤 is also used as a surname in China and Vietnam, but with different romanizations (Dúgū in Mandarin, Độc Cô in Vietnamese). The families are not related.
How many people have the last name Dokgo?
502 people in South Korea had the surname Dokgo (독고) in the 2015 census, or under 0.01% of the population. That makes it the #132 most common Korean surname.
How do you write Dokgo in Korean?
Dokgo is written 독고 in Hangul. In Hanja it is 獨孤.
What does the Korean last name Dokgo mean?
The Hanja 獨孤 means "lone orphan". Korean surname meanings come from the Chinese character the name is written with, not from the Korean sound.
Is Dokgo a rare Korean last name?
Yes. With 502 holders it ranks #132 of 191 — well outside the common surnames. See our list of rare Korean last names for others like it.
Source: Statistics Korea (KOSIS), 2015 Population and Housing Census, surnames by Hangul with five or more holders (total population 49,705,663). Hanja meanings from standard Hanja dictionaries. Check another surname.