Gov't proposes standardized system for foreign names in official Korean documents

Korea is proposing a new standardized system for recording foreign names in official documents, aiming to resolve the inconsistencies that have long plagued identity verification for foreigners.

Foreign students prepare their resumes at a job fair held in Busan on May 23. [SONG BONG-KEUN]

Korea is proposing a new standardized system for recording foreign names in official documents, aiming to resolve the inconsistencies that have long plagued identity verification for foreigners.

The new standard, announced by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety on Wednesday, mandates that all foreign names in Roman letters will now be written uniformly in uppercase and will follow a "surname, given name" order, with a space between the surname and given name. When written in Korean, the names will follow the same order but will be written together without a space.

The Interior Ministry said it has established a proposal and plans to gather public feedback from Aug. 29 to Sept. 19 before finalizing and implementing the standard.

With the foreign population now exceeding 2 million people, the change will finally address the confusion that many have faced due to inconsistent name formats across different documents. In Korea, names are traditionally written with the surname first, followed by the given name, which contrasts the naming conventions in many Western countries. As a result, the order and spacing of foreign names in Korean documents have varied widely.

A foreigner named Tom Sawyer, for instance, might find his name written as "Sawyer Tom," "Tom Sawyer," "TomSawyer" or "SawyerTom" depending on the document. The new rule simplifies this by standardizing the format to "SAWYER TOM."

In official documents, like the family register, if a Korean name is already recorded, that name will be used. If no Korean name is available, the original Roman name will be transcribed into hangul following foreign language transcription rules.

The guidelines also require that both Roman and Korean names be included in documents to make identity verification easier.

The new standard can be viewed and feedback can be given through the National Participation Legislation Center website (http://opinion.lawmaking.go.kr) or by mail.

BY SEO JI-EUN [seo.jieun1@joongang.co.kr]