Dongbang 동방 — Korean last name
Is Dongbang a Korean last name?
Yes. Dongbang (Hangul: 동방, Hanja: 東方) is a Korean family name recorded in the 2015 South Korean census with 180 holders, making it the #140 most common of the 191 surnames counted. Roughly one in every 276,143 South Koreans is a Dongbang. It is one of the rarest surnames in Korea — fewer than a thousand people carry it.
How to write Dongbang in Korean
In Hangul, Dongbang is written 동방. Its Hanja (Chinese character) is 東方. Unlike many Korean surnames, Dongbang has a single Hanja form, so every Dongbang in Korea shares the same character.
What does Dongbang mean?
The character 東方 means the east; eastern direction. 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.
How common is Dongbang?
Dongbang is ultra-rare Korean surname. Just above it in the rankings is Nang (181) and just below it is Pil (174). 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
Dongbang 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 Dongbang, and the older McCune–Reischauer system gives Tongbang. 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 동방.
How to pronounce Dongbang
Dongbang (동방) is pronounced roughly as the Revised Romanization "Dongbang" 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 Dongbang 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: 東方 is Dōngfāng in Mandarin and Đông Phương in Vietnamese. A Korean Dongbang 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 "Dongbang" 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 Dongbang
Is Dongbang a Korean or Chinese last name?
Dongbang as spelled is Korean (동방). The Hanja 東方 is also used as a surname in China and Vietnam, but with different romanizations (Dōngfāng in Mandarin, Đông Phương in Vietnamese). The families are not related.
How many people have the last name Dongbang?
180 people in South Korea had the surname Dongbang (동방) in the 2015 census, or under 0.01% of the population. That makes it the #140 most common Korean surname.
How do you write Dongbang in Korean?
Dongbang is written 동방 in Hangul. In Hanja it is 東方.
What does the Korean last name Dongbang mean?
The Hanja 東方 means "the east; eastern direction". Korean surname meanings come from the Chinese character the name is written with, not from the Korean sound.
Is Dongbang a rare Korean last name?
Yes. With 180 holders it ranks #140 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.