How to Pronounce Korean Surnames: Kim, Lee, and Park
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Kim, Lee, and Park are pronounced closer to “Geem,” “Ee,” and “Bak,” not the way their English spellings suggest. Korean romanization borrows English letters without their sounds, so reading these three surnames off a business card almost guarantees a pronunciation a Korean listener won’t recognize: a hard K on Kim, an L that isn’t in Lee, and a phantom R on Park. Here’s what each one should actually sound like, why the spelling drifted so far from the sound, and how the same fixes carry over to Choi, Jung, Kang, and Lim.
Quick answers
- “Kim” is closer to a soft “Geem,” since the first consonant in Korean is unaspirated, and about 21.5% of South Koreans carried this surname in the 2015 census.
- “Lee” has no L sound at all in modern Korean. It’s just “Ee,” and the L survives only on paper.
- “Park” has no R sound whatsoever; it’s pronounced “Bak,” rhyming with “sock,” not with the English word for a green space.
How to Pronounce Korean Surnames the Right Way
The short version is that Korean romanization borrows English letters but not English sounds, so reading a Korean surname like an English word will almost always mislead you. Korean consonants like ㄱ, ㅂ, and ㄷ sit somewhere between the English voiced and voiceless pairs (g/k, b/p, d/t), which is why the same name gets spelled “Kim” on one passport and would sound, to an English ear, closer to “Gim.” Vowels are also simpler and more consistent than English spelling suggests; there’s no diphthong hiding inside “Park,” for instance, just one flat vowel. The spellings also survive for a paperwork reason. The Revised Romanization of Korean writes ㄱ as “g” and ㅂ as “b” before a vowel, yet its own rule on personal names says that “transcriptions of family names will be established additionally,” so surnames were left out of the reform and families kept the spellings they already had. Once you stop trusting the English letters and start listening for the actual Hangul syllable, all three names get much easier to say correctly.
Why “Kim” Sounds Like “Geem,” Not “Kim”
Kim (김) starts with a lenis, unaspirated consonant, which lands halfway between an English “g” and “k” with almost no puff of air. English speakers instinctively add a hard aspirated K, the same one that starts “kite” or “kettle,” and that extra aspiration is exactly what makes an English “Kim” sound foreign to a Korean listener. In Statistics Korea’s 2015 census results, still the most recent surname count, roughly 21.5% of South Koreans carry this surname, making it by far the most common family name in the country. Fans meet this syllable constantly (RM’s legal name is 김남준, Kim Nam-joon), and reading idol names in Hangul is a painless way to get used to seeing 김 as one soft block. Softening that K into something closer to “Geem” is usually the single change that makes a foreigner’s pronunciation click for a Korean listener.
Why “Lee” Has No L Sound At All
This is the one that surprises people the most: modern spoken Korean for 이 has no L sound whatsoever, and it’s simply pronounced “Ee.” The character behind it, 李, was originally read 리 (ri), and South Korea’s initial-sound rule (두음법칙) drops a ㄹ at the start of a word before ㅣ, so the standard name became 이. The L in “Lee” is an echo of that older consonant, preserved on paper. North Korea never adopted the rule, so its documents write the name 리 and romanize it “Ri,” while older South Korean and academic texts often use “Yi.” In everyday Seoul conversation today, though, you’ll hear a clean, single syllable: “Ee.” Say “Lee” to a room of Koreans and you’ll be understood, but say “Ee” and you’ll sound like you’ve actually studied the language.
Why “Park” Doesn’t Rhyme With the English Word “Park”
Park (박) has zero rhotic sound in it. There is no R anywhere in the Korean pronunciation, and the vowel is a short, open “ah,” not the English “ar” you’d hear in “car” or “park” the noun. The correct sound is closer to “Bak,” rhyming with “sock” or “rock,” with that same soft, unaspirated consonant at the start that also affects Kim. No official system has ever put an R in this name: McCune-Reischauer, the basis of the government’s 1984 rules, writes it “Pak,” and the Revised Romanization of Korean, which South Korea adopted on July 7, 2000 and still uses on road signs and official documents, writes it “Bak.” The R is an English spelling habit; the usual explanation is that “ar” was meant to cue the long “ah” of a British-style “park,” so readers wouldn’t say “pack.” You’ll find this surname behind roughly 8.4% of the population in that same 2015 census, which puts Kim, Lee, and Park together at close to 45% of all South Koreans. Said in one breath with a given name, 박 can even change shape: 박민수 (Park Min-su) comes out closer to [방민수], because a ㄱ in front of ㅁ turns nasal, one of the four sound-change rules that make Korean words read faster.
A Quick Reference Table for Korea’s Most Common Surnames
The same two habits (a soft first consonant, and no letters the Hangul doesn’t have) cover the rest of that 2015 ranking too, which runs Kim, Lee, Park, Choi, Jung, Kang, Cho, Yun, Jang, and Lim.
| Hangul | Common Spelling | Closer Pronunciation | Common Mistake |
|---|---|---|---|
| 김 | Kim | Geem | Hard English K |
| 이 | Lee | Ee | Adding an L sound |
| 박 | Park | Bak | Adding an English R |
| 최 | Choi | Chweh | Saying “Choy,” as in “boy” |
| 정 | Jung / Jeong | Juhng (as in “sung”) | Saying “Joong” or a German “Yoong” |
| 강 | Kang | Gahng | Rhyming it with “bang” |
| 임 | Lim / Im | Eem | Adding an L sound, as with Lee |
Photo © Korea Tourism Organization
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Is the Korean surname 박 romanized “Park” or “Bak”?
Both spellings name the same family, 박. “Bak” is the spelling under the Revised Romanization of Korean, the system the South Korean government adopted in 2000 for road signs and official documents, and it’s the closer guide to the actual sound. “Park” is the far more familiar spelling on passports and business cards, but it doesn’t come from any official system (McCune-Reischauer gives “Pak”), which is why its R is never pronounced.
Q: How do you write “Lee” in Korean?
In Hangul, the surname is a single block, 이: the silent placeholder consonant ㅇ with the vowel ㅣ beside it, and no letter for an L sound anywhere in it. On English documents you’ll see several different spellings depending on the romanization era and personal preference: “Lee” is by far the most common on modern passports and business cards, while “Yi,” “I,” and “Rhee” (as in South Korea’s first president, Syngman Rhee) show up on older records and in academic transliteration.
Q: Is “Lee” pronounced “Lee” or “Yi” in Korean?
Neither exactly. Modern spoken Korean says “Ee,” with no L or Y sound; “Yi” is simply an older spelling of that same vowel, and you won’t hear an L or a Y in everyday Seoul speech.
Q: Can I call someone “Kim-ssi” once I can say the name right?
Better not. Attaching 씨 to a bare surname (김 씨) sounds condescending in Korean, so use the full name plus 씨 (김민수 씨) or a job title instead; our guide to the honorific mistakes foreigners make explains why that one syllable changes the whole tone.
Q: Is “Choi” pronounced like “Choy”?
Not quite. 최 is closer to “Chweh”: the ch is a strong, aspirated sound (unlike the soft start of Kim or Park), and standard Korean lets the vowel ㅚ be said as “weh,” which is how you’ll usually hear it in Seoul. The Revised Romanization spelling is “Choe,” but “Choi” remains the familiar one for Korea’s fourth most common surname.
Q: Why do Korean surnames get spelled so differently from how they sound?
Because the English spellings were settled before any official system covered surnames. Families chose English-friendly forms like “Lee” and “Park” decades ago, and since the current romanization rules still leave family names to a separate standard, passports kept the old forms long after the habits that produced them faded.
Once you unlearn the English letters and start listening for the Hangul underneath, Kim, Lee, and Park stop being a pronunciation minefield and start being three of the easiest names to get right. That matters, because with close to half the country sharing them, you’ll be saying at least one of them constantly if you spend any real time in Korea.
Part of Korean Pronunciation Guide
