How to write your name in Korean
Korean writes your name by sound, not by spelling — which is why generators get it wrong.
Type your name into a 'Korean name generator' and you'll get something confident and frequently wrong. The generators transliterate English letters. Korean transliterates English sounds.
Once you can read Hangul, you can do this yourself in about a minute, and get it right.
Learn the letters first — the free worksheets take a weekend.
Step one: say your name, don't spell it
Write down how your name sounds, not how it's written. 'Michael' is MY-kuhl, so it becomes 마이클 — not anything based on the letters c and h.
'Sarah' is SEH-ruh: 세라. The silent h never appears.
Step two: handle the sounds Korean doesn't have
There's no f, v, z, th or hard r. Korean substitutes the nearest neighbour: f becomes ㅍ (Fred → 프레드), v becomes ㅂ (Victor → 빅터), z becomes ㅈ, th becomes ㅅ or ㄷ.
This isn't sloppiness — it's what every language does with foreign sounds. English does exactly the same thing to Korean names.
Step three: give lonely consonants a vowel
Korean syllables need vowels. A consonant cluster gets broken up with ㅡ (eu), the most neutral vowel available. 'Chris' becomes 크리스, three blocks. 'Smith' becomes 스미스.
That's why Korean versions of English names often have more syllables than the original.
A worked example
'Jessica': JE-si-ka. ㅈ + ㅔ = 제, ㅅ + ㅣ = 시, ㅋ + ㅏ = 카 → 제시카. Which, if you've seen any K-pop, will look immediately familiar.
Common questions
Should I pick a Korean name instead?+
Only if a Korean friend helps you choose one. A transliterated name is completely normal and never sounds odd.
Is there one correct spelling?+
Often there are two or three accepted versions of the same foreign name. Pick the one closest to how you actually say it.
Both worksheets, free
The 4-page Hangul alphabet worksheet and the 2-page syllable bonus, emailed in seconds.