Korean vs Chinese Last Names: Shared Surnames and How to Tell Them Apart

Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese surnames come from the same stock of Chinese characters, so the same family name can exist in all three countries under different spellings — and unrelated families. This guide shows how to tell a Korean surname from a Chinese one, and works through the names people ask about most.

The one-line rule

The character is shared; the family is not; the spelling tells you which country. 李 is a surname in Korea (Lee), China (Li) and Vietnam (Lý). A Korean Lee and a Chinese Li are not relatives — they simply both descend from people who adopted the same prestigious character, more than a thousand years apart and in different places. Because each country romanizes its own pronunciation, the English spelling usually gives away the origin at a glance.

Shared surnames: Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese and Vietnamese spellings

Cantonese spellings follow Hong Kong convention. Note the trap in the last two rows: the Cantonese spelling of 蔡 is “Choi”, which is not the Korean Choi 崔, and the Vietnamese Nguyễn corresponds to a Korean surname held by only six people.

The surnames people ask about most

Is Lee a Korean or Chinese last name?

Both, and it is the single most confused name. In Korea, Lee (이, 李) is the second most common surname with 7.3 million holders. In China the same character is Li, the most common surname in the world. “Lee” spelled with double e is almost always Korean (or an English/Cantonese Lee); “Li” is Mandarin Chinese. A Korean Lee pronounces it “ee” — the L is silent in the South.

Is Kim a Korean or Chinese last name?

Kim is Korean. The character 金 exists in China as Jin and in Cantonese as Kam, but the spelling “Kim” is used only by Koreans (and by ethnic Koreans in China, the Chosunjok). If you meet a Kim, you are meeting a Korean.

Is Park a Korean last name?

Yes, and uniquely so. 朴 was created in Korea for the descendants of Silla’s founder and has no native Chinese lineage; Chinese speakers use its reading Piáo only for Koreans. Park is the third most common Korean surname. (The English surname Park, as in the film director Nick Park, is unrelated.)

Is Chang a Korean or Chinese last name?

Usually Chinese, sometimes Korean. Chang is the standard Wade–Giles spelling of Mandarin Zhang 張 and of Taiwanese families. In Korea 張 is romanized Jang today, but older Korean emigrants used Chang, so a Korean-American “Chang” is often a Jang. A separate, tiny Korean surname 창 (Chang, 1,095 people) also exists.

Is Chung a Korean or Chinese last name?

Chung is the old McCune–Reischauer spelling of the Korean Jung 정 (鄭), used by many Korean families abroad — the Hyundai founder Chung Ju-yung, for example. It is also a Cantonese spelling of 鍾 and 張. Check the given name: a two-syllable hyphenated given name signals Korean.

Is Song a Korean or Chinese last name?

Both, with the same spelling. Korean Song (송, 宋) has 683,521 holders; Mandarin Song 宋 is a common Chinese surname. The character is the same and the spelling coincides, so only the given name or context distinguishes them.

Is Han a Korean or Chinese last name?

Both, spelled identically. Korean Han (한, 韓) means Korea itself — it is the “Han” in Hanguk. Chinese Han 韓 is the same character; the unrelated 漢 (Han dynasty) is rarely a surname.

Is Hong a Korean or Chinese last name?

Both. Korean Hong (홍, 洪) has 558,994 holders; Mandarin Hong 洪 is common in Fujian and Taiwan; Cantonese writes it Hung. Same character, same spelling in Korean and Mandarin.

Is Yang a Korean or Chinese last name?

Both. Korean Yang 양 covers two characters, 梁 (Liang in Mandarin) and 楊 (Yang in Mandarin), so a Korean Yang may correspond to either Chinese Liang or Chinese Yang.

Is Sun a Korean last name?

Rarely. “Sun” is the Mandarin spelling of 孫, which in Korean is Son (손, 457,356 people). A Korean Sun is more likely an alternate spelling of Seon (선, 42,842 people). Chinese Sun is far more common than either.

Is Nguyen a Korean last name?

No. Nguyễn is Vietnamese — about 38% of Vietnam carries it. The same character 阮 exists in Korea as Wan (완), but only six people had it in 2015.

Is Chen a Korean last name?

No. Chen is the Mandarin spelling of 陳, the most common surname in Taiwan and southern China (Chan in Cantonese, Trần in Vietnamese). The Korean reading is Jin (진), which has 186,310 holders and is romanized Jin or Chin, never Chen.

Is Wang a Korean last name?

Mostly Chinese. Wang 王 is the most common surname in mainland China. A Korean Wang (왕) exists with about 25,000 people, many descended from the Goryeo royal house, but it is a small minority; most Wangs you meet are Chinese.

What about Japanese surnames?

Japanese surnames are easy to separate: they are usually two or three syllables, written with two or more kanji, and describe places or landscape features (Tanaka “middle of the rice field”, Yamamoto “base of the mountain”). No mainstream Korean surname looks like this. The handful of Japanese-origin surnames in the Korean census — Hwangmok 荒木 (Araki), Mubon 武本 (Takemoto), Deungjeong 藤井 (Fujii) — belong to fewer than twenty people combined, descendants of families who naturalised after 1945.

Frequently asked questions