Rim 림 — Korean last name
Is Rim a Korean last name?
Yes. Rim (Hangul: 림, Hanja: 林) is a Korean family name recorded in the 2015 South Korean census with 47 holders, making it the #159 most common of the 191 surnames counted. Roughly one in every 1,057,567 South Koreans is a Rim. It is one of the rarest surnames in Korea — fewer than a thousand people carry it.
How to write Rim in Korean
In Hangul, Rim is written 림. Its Hanja (Chinese character) is 林. Unlike many Korean surnames, Rim has a single Hanja form, so every Rim in Korea shares the same character.
What does Rim mean?
The character 林 means forest (North Korean form of Lim). 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 Rim?
Rim is ultra-rare Korean surname. Just above it in the rankings is Dam (47) and just below it is Su (47). 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
Rim 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 Rim, and the older McCune–Reischauer system gives Rim. 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 림.
How to pronounce Rim
Rim (림) is pronounced roughly as the Revised Romanization "Rim" 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 Rim 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: 林 is Lín in Mandarin and Lâm in Vietnamese. A Korean Rim 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 "Rim" 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 Rim
Is Rim a Korean or Chinese last name?
Rim as spelled is Korean (림). The Hanja 林 is also used as a surname in China and Vietnam, but with different romanizations (Lín in Mandarin, Lâm in Vietnamese). The families are not related.
How many people have the last name Rim?
47 people in South Korea had the surname Rim (림) in the 2015 census, or under 0.01% of the population. That makes it the #159 most common Korean surname.
How do you write Rim in Korean?
Rim is written 림 in Hangul. In Hanja it is 林.
What does the Korean last name Rim mean?
The Hanja 林 means "forest (North Korean form of Lim)". Korean surname meanings come from the Chinese character the name is written with, not from the Korean sound.
Is Rim a rare Korean last name?
Yes. With 47 holders it ranks #159 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.