Korea's loanword rules write a foreign name as close to its sound in the original language as possible. That is why the same Michael comes out in Hangeul, the Korean alphabet, as 마이클 for an English speaker and 미하엘 for a German one. If your name is in the official examples, use that spelling. If it isn't, there is no single official answer, so write the sounds you actually say and stick with one version.
A contains-search for Michael in the National Institute of Korean Language's lookup returns 183 entries (checked 6 October 2026), some of them longer names with those letters inside. The English Michaels are 마이클, the German ones 미하엘, and the Swedish, Danish and Dutch Michaels listed are 미카엘. Same seven letters, three ways to write them.
Why does one name get two spellings?
The institute put the principle in one sentence back in 2002: the basic rule of Korean loanword spelling is to write a loanword as close to its original pronunciation as possible. The same piece gives a name as its example. Charles is 찰스 if he is English-speaking and 샤를 if he is French-speaking.
The rules themselves don't phrase it that neatly. You see the principle in how they are built. The main chart in Korea's Loanword Orthography is a table from the International Phonetic Alphabet to Hangeul, so it starts from sounds. Foreign names follow the same chapters as other loanwords, and names from languages the rules don't cover follow the original pronunciation, as a rule.
Two limits are worth knowing before you take this too far. The 2002 piece notes that for a few languages whose pronunciation isn't well documented, the rules go by spelling instead. And the sound-first approach applies to words coming in from other languages. Korean's own spelling keeps the shape of words, so, as the UNESCO nomination file for Hunminjeongeum puts it, written syllables no longer exactly match spoken ones.
Which English sounds have a set spelling in Hangeul?
Hangeul, often spelled Hangul, is Korea's own alphabet. The current spelling rules use 24 letters: 14 consonants and 10 vowels, with combinations of them for other sounds. The loanword rules say foreign words are written with those 24 alone, and the English section sets how each sound is written. A few examples from it:
| Sound | Written as | Example in the rules |
|---|---|---|
| f | ㅍ before a vowel, 프 elsewhere | graph → 그래프 |
| v | ㅂ before a vowel, 브 elsewhere | olive → 올리브 |
| th in thrill | ㅅ before a vowel, 스 elsewhere | thrill → 스릴 |
| l at the end of a word or before a consonant | a ㄹ at the bottom of the block | hotel → 호텔 |
| a long vowel | no mark for length | team → 팀 |
Two more rules shape how a name looks. A final consonant has to be one of seven (ㄱ ㄴ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅅ ㅇ), and the doubled "tense" consonants aren't used for p, t and k sounds as a rule.
What if your name isn't in the official list?
Then there is no single official spelling. The institute runs a public Q&A board, and when someone asked in February 2025 how to write a friend's name, the answer was that the name had not been deliberated, so no definitive spelling could be given, and that a foreign personal name can follow a customary spelling if one exists. Two months later a reply on another name said the same, and pointed the asker to the IPA-to-Hangeul chart if they knew the name's phonetic symbols.
Custom has a place in the rules themselves. The first chapter says established loanwords are spelled with respect for custom, and the names section keeps spellings that came in through a third language, like 헤이그 for The Hague and 시저 for Caesar. The institute's page on the government–press joint committee on loanwords is blunt about the rest: people easily spell foreign words differently, and having a rule doesn't make spellings uniform by itself.
So when you and a friend write the same name two ways, the institute's answers stop at "you can follow a customary spelling." My own take goes one step further: if you followed the sound of your name, your version isn't wrong. My advice: pick one and keep it.
How do you look a name up, screen by screen?
The site is in Korean, with no English switch on the main or lookup screens. You don't need to read much of it. Here is the path, as the screens appeared on 6 October 2026:
- Open korean.go.kr/kornorms and click 용례 찾기 ("find examples")
- The 외래어 표기법 (loanword) tab is already selected. Leave it
- In the 찾을 대상 ("search in") box, choose 원어 표기 ("original spelling")
- Type your first name in Roman letters and press 찾기 ("search")
- Read the table. 한글 표기 is the Hangeul spelling, 원어 표기 the original, and 국명/언어명 the country and language. Look for 영어 (English), 독일어 (German), 프랑스어 (French), 에스파냐어 (Spanish) or 이탈리아어 (Italian). Some rows give a country with the language left blank
Most entries are public figures and places, so expect to find a name like yours, not you.
Akasha Note The match box next to 찾을 대상 starts on 포함 ("contains"). Keep it there. It catches your name inside a longer original spelling, which is how you find "Moore, Michael". Switch it to 일치 ("exact") and Michael brings back two general-word rows. The catch with 포함 is short names: Ann also pulls in longer names that contain those letters. Scan the 원어 표기 column for your actual name.
Not listed? Write it sound by sound, then stack each syllable into a block. The UNESCO file describes the placement: a horizontal vowel goes under the first consonant, a vertical one goes to its right, and a final consonant sits below both. That is how ㅎ + ㅏ + ㄱ becomes 학, and ㄱ + ㅛ becomes 교. Together, 학교, school. Michael works the same way: ㅁ + ㅏ, ㅇ + ㅣ, ㅋ + ㅡ + ㄹ gives 마이클.
Will your name be in Hangeul on Korean paperwork?
A residence card is the ID issued to foreigners who register to stay in Korea for more than 90 days. The Ministry of Justice said in 2019 that the card uses the Roman-letter name in your passport, as a rule. Adding a Hangeul name was opened to some groups who ask for it, such as ethnic Chinese long settled in Korea and ethnic Koreans with foreign citizenship.
Administrative documents follow a separate standard. In 2024 the interior ministry set a standard for writing foreigners' names on administrative documents: the Roman-letter name and a Hangeul name side by side as the principle, with one of the two allowed where a system can't fit both. The Roman name goes surname first in capitals, and the Hangeul name goes surname first with no space, so TOM SAWYER becomes SAWYER TOM and 소여톰. Where no Hangeul name exists on your official papers, it is written from the original pronunciation by the same loanword rules above. The ministry said it would apply this in stages, starting with certificates it issues, such as the local tax payment certificate and the resident registration copy.
The ministry's own explainer adds that the standard covers administrative documents and doesn't govern how names are written in everyday life, and that certificates issued before it stay valid. So the spelling you pick for everyday use is yours.
Hangeul Day, 9 October 2026
Hangeul Day falls on Friday 9 October, a national day and a public holiday. The culture ministry marks 2026 as 580 years since Hunminjeongeum was promulgated and 100 years since Hangeul Day was first set.
The short version
Save this before you write your name on anything.
- Foreign names are written as close to their original sound as possible. Michael: 마이클 (English), 미하엘 (German)
- Look it up at korean.go.kr/kornorms → 용례 찾기 → 원어 표기. The site is in Korean
- Read the 한글 표기 on a row in your language
- Not listed? No single official spelling. Write your sounds, one block per syllable
- Residence cards use your passport's Roman-letter name, as a rule. A 2024 standard calls for Roman and Hangeul side by side on administrative documents
- Keep one spelling
Send this to the friend who'd spell your name differently.
The limits of this article
This is a reading of the published rules and of the institute's own lookup screens on 6 October 2026, not a report from an immigration desk. What a particular office does with your name is beyond what those documents cover.
The 183 results for Michael come from a contains search, so some rows are longer names with those letters inside them rather than people called Michael. The 2024 administrative standard is being applied in stages, and which certificates have reached it by now is not something the announcements state. The Hangeul line on a residence card is described here from the 2019 rule, and whether the categories widened after that is not covered by these sources. The joint committee publishes an older membership list, so nothing here is a claim about what it is doing today.
For getting around, what the 2026 approval did and didn't change for Google Maps in Korea covers the map apps. And if you're here this month, ten October festivals and which of their websites have English is the next read.
Do it with a local Once your name is on paper, the next step is saying it to someone. Akasha is an app for finding local meetups and experiences in Korea, and its website, akashatrip.com, lists "Free gatherings where you can practice Korean." Find hosts and local experiences on Akasha: iOS / Android
One question for the comments, and I do read them: what did your name come out as in Hangeul, and did a friend write it differently?
Who wrote this. I run Akasha and write this blog from Seoul. For this piece I read the Loanword Orthography, the institute's answers on personal names and the two ministries' notices on foreigners' names. The lookup results were checked on 6 October 2026. More at @akasha.korea.
Sources
- National Institute of Korean Language, Loanword Orthography (in force from 2017-03-28), incl. Ch.1 Art.1, 3, 4, 5; Table 1; English section; Ch.4 Sec.1: https://korean.go.kr/kornorms/regltn/regltnView.do?regltn_code=0003 (read 2026-10-06)
- Hangeul Orthography, Art.4 (24 letters): https://korean.go.kr/kornorms/regltn/regltnView.do?regltn_code=0001
- Saegugeo Sosik, April 2002, on the loanword principle and Charles 찰스/샤를: https://www.korean.go.kr/nkview/nknews/200204/45_3.html
- Loanword examples lookup (checked 2026-10-06: Michael, 183 entries with 포함, 2 with 일치): https://korean.go.kr/kornorms/example/exampleList.do?regltn_code=0003
- Online Q&A answers on foreign personal names, 2025-02-19 and 2025-04-28: https://www.korean.go.kr/front/onlineQna/onlineQnaView.do?mn_id=216&qna_seq=310360 · https://www.korean.go.kr/front/onlineQna/onlineQnaView.do?mn_id=216&qna_seq=313913
- Government–press joint committee on loanwords, information page: https://www.korean.go.kr/popup/committee.do
- UNESCO Memory of the World nomination, Hunmin Chongum: https://media.unesco.org/sites/default/files/webform/mow001/republic_of_korea_hunmin_chongum.pdf
- Ministry of Justice, Hangeul names on residence cards, 2019-05-03: https://www.immigration.go.kr/bbs/immigration/409/500154/artclView.do · residence card guide, 2022-05-12: https://www.moj.go.kr/bbs/moj/93/559234/artclView.do
- Ministry of the Interior and Safety, standard for foreigners' names on administrative documents, 2024-08-28: https://www.korea.kr/news/policyNewsView.do?newsId=148933140 · explainer, 2024-11-22: https://www.mois.go.kr/frt/bbs/type002/commonSelectBoardArticle.do?bbsId=BBSMSTR_000000000216&nttId=113984
- Act on National Days, Art.2; Act on Public Holidays, Art.2 (read 2026-10-06): https://www.law.go.kr/법령/국경일에관한법률 · https://www.law.go.kr/법령/공휴일에관한법률
- Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Hangeul Day centenary, 2026-10-02: https://www.korea.kr/news/policyNewsView.do?newsId=148972941
Photograph: Pexels licensed work.