Historical evidence of phonological changes in Korean names, 1940–2021
Jong-mi Kim (Kangwon National University)
U-ri Go (Kangwon National University)
Abstract
A historical analysis of popular names in Korea shows several phonological shifts
toward ease of pronunciation and spelling in Roman letters. To investigate, we
collected, romanized, and statiscally analyzed the top twenty popular Korean given
and changed names of both sexes (male and female) per decade in three geographical
dimensions (national, metropolitan, and traditional). The results showed the historical
shift to ease of pronunciation and spelling in three ways. First, recent names have
fewer consonantal sequences and fewer numbers of Roman letters. Second, syllable-
final [n] is preferred to [ŋ] in recent names. Third, a common vowel over an
uncommon vowel is preferred in a syllable in the romanized forms of names. These
results imply the preference for unmarked phonology to facilitate the pronunciation
by other nationalities, as well as the orthographic adaptation changes to the sound-
based Roman alphabet from the meaning-based Chinese characters. The complete list
of the top 20 popular names per decade is provided in the appendix in the Korean
alphabet.
Keywords
phonological changes, name history, Korean names, changed names, romanization of names,
orthography of names, unmarked phonology