Eum 음 — Korean last name
Is Eum a Korean last name?
Yes. Eum (Hangul: 음, Hanja: 陰) is a Korean family name recorded in the 2015 South Korean census with 5,604 holders, making it the #104 most common of the 191 surnames counted. Roughly one in every 8,870 South Koreans is a Eum. It is a rare surname; most Koreans have never met a Eum.
How to write Eum in Korean
In Hangul, Eum is written 음. Its Hanja (Chinese character) is 陰. Unlike many Korean surnames, Eum has a single Hanja form, so every Eum in Korea shares the same character.
What does Eum mean?
The character 陰 means shade, the yin principle. 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 Eum?
Eum is rare Korean surname. Just above it in the rankings is Jegal (5,735) and just below it is On (5,418). 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
Eum 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 Eum, and the older McCune–Reischauer system gives Ŭm. Other spellings you will see in real life include Um, Em, Yum, Ehum, Ng. 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 음.
How to pronounce Eum
Eum (음) is pronounced roughly as the Revised Romanization "Eum" 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 Eum 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: 陰 is Yīn in Mandarin and Âm in Vietnamese. A Korean Eum 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 "Eum" 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 Eum
Is Eum a Korean or Chinese last name?
Eum as spelled is Korean (음). The Hanja 陰 is also used as a surname in China and Vietnam, but with different romanizations (Yīn in Mandarin, Âm in Vietnamese). The families are not related.
How many people have the last name Eum?
5,604 people in South Korea had the surname Eum (음) in the 2015 census, or 0.01% of the population. That makes it the #104 most common Korean surname.
How do you write Eum in Korean?
Eum is written 음 in Hangul. In Hanja it is 陰.
What does the Korean last name Eum mean?
The Hanja 陰 means "shade, the yin principle". Korean surname meanings come from the Chinese character the name is written with, not from the Korean sound.
Is Eum a rare Korean last name?
Yes. With 5,604 holders it ranks #104 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.