Jegal 제갈 — Korean last name
Is Jegal a Korean last name?
Yes. Jegal (Hangul: 제갈, Hanja: 諸葛) is a Korean family name recorded in the 2015 South Korean census with 5,735 holders, making it the #103 most common of the 191 surnames counted. Roughly one in every 8,667 South Koreans is a Jegal. It is a rare surname; most Koreans have never met a Jegal.
How to write Jegal in Korean
In Hangul, Jegal is written 제갈. Its Hanja (Chinese character) is 諸葛. Unlike many Korean surnames, Jegal has a single Hanja form, so every Jegal in Korea shares the same character.
What does Jegal mean?
The character 諸葛 means a two-syllable surname (as in Zhuge Liang). 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 Jegal clans (bon-gwan)
Korean surnames are subdivided by bon-gwan — the ancestral hometown of the clan founder. Two people named Jegal from different bon-gwan are considered unrelated. The best-known Jegal clans are: Namyang Jegal. The place name comes first (for example "Gimhae Kim" means the Kim clan whose founder settled in Gimhae).
How common is Jegal?
Jegal is rare Korean surname. Just above it in the rankings is Bin (5,782) and just below it is Eum (5,604). 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
Jegal 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 Jegal, and the older McCune–Reischauer system gives Chegal. Other spellings you will see in real life include Jekal, Jaegal, Jaekal, Jeagal, Jeakal. 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 제갈.
How to pronounce Jegal
Jegal (제갈) is pronounced roughly as the Revised Romanization "Jegal" 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 Jegal 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: 諸葛 is Zhūgě in Mandarin and Gia Cát in Vietnamese. A Korean Jegal 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 "Jegal" 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 Jegal
Is Jegal a Korean or Chinese last name?
Jegal as spelled is Korean (제갈). The Hanja 諸葛 is also used as a surname in China and Vietnam, but with different romanizations (Zhūgě in Mandarin, Gia Cát in Vietnamese). The families are not related.
How many people have the last name Jegal?
5,735 people in South Korea had the surname Jegal (제갈) in the 2015 census, or 0.01% of the population. That makes it the #103 most common Korean surname.
How do you write Jegal in Korean?
Jegal is written 제갈 in Hangul. In Hanja it is 諸葛.
What does the Korean last name Jegal mean?
The Hanja 諸葛 means "a two-syllable surname (as in Zhuge Liang)". Korean surname meanings come from the Chinese character the name is written with, not from the Korean sound.
Is Jegal a rare Korean last name?
Yes. With 5,735 holders it ranks #103 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.