Why is it so hard to understand Korean names? Media professionals, especially, are clueless. The most recent example is this week's Sports Illustrated, with a nice little article on the Korea win over Japan in the WBC. Apparently, the winning home run was hit by a Korean slugger named Seung. Who the hell is that? In the same article, it mentions Seung Yeop Lee hitting the home run, and then quotes Korean manager Kim In Sik. So the unsuspecting reader now thinks that the Korean manager is Sik, like Japan is managed by Oh, and the US is managed by Martinez. Or, someone reading the article who is more familiar with the family-name-first concept of Korean names thinks that Seung hit a homer off Ishii, while managed by Kim... Other recent examples of confusion include calling the Portland Trailblazers' Korean center Seung-jin as if it were his family name (Ha Seung-jin), the use of Bo on the uniform of Hong Myong-bo when he played for the Galaxy... It ain't that hard, people. A lot of the blame probably goes to the lack of PR by Korean organizations. During WC2002 in Korea, for example, did the KFA or other organization provide a media kit for foreign press members with simple basics of Korean names? Why not provide a media kit for international competitions like the World Cup, WBC, Olympics, etc. During the recent training trip to the USA, it would have been so easy for the KFA to prepare some kind of media kit for the announcers, etc. with explanations. The Telemundo telecasts were confusing as hell, eg. Korean goal scored by Dong Gook. So that brings me to my point... the simple solution is when using English for international events, Korean names should be flipped to be consistent with the Western protocol. Ji-sung Park, Young-pyo Lee, etc. Until Koreans (and Chinese) do this consistently, there will always be confusion. It may sound odd to us Koreans, but so does the English spelling of Park Chu-young, or is it Ju-young... Chung Kyung-ho... or is it Jeong Kyung-ho... An aside is that the French protocol of capitalizing family names works pretty well. In the Olympics, there was no doubt when you saw names like AHN Hyun-Soo, LEE Ho-Suk, OHNO Apolo, etc.
I like the capitlization of family name idea. There shouldn't be a reason why Koreans should put their family names in the back just for the sake that our ignorant western counterparts can understand it easier. And yea, PR is definetly a good idea. As for soccer jerseys, the Women's NT have long-ago excluded surnames from their jerseys. For example, Park Eun-seon was just "Eun-Sun." Initially I liked the idea because it makes one Park distinguishable from another, but after reading your post, what if we do this : A H N Jung-hwan There's plenty of space on the back of the jersey, if they make the given names appear in a smaller font.
I second this. And I also agree that our MNT should do what our WNT did with their names on their jerseys. I guess it's kind of like what Yao Ming and Ichiro are doing on their jerseys. If I'm not mistaken, Yao and Ichiro are their first names right? L. WOONJAE L. YOUNGPYO K. JINKYU C. JINCHUL C. WONHEE L. EULYONG P. JISUNG K. NAMIL L. CHUNSOO S. KIHYEON L. DONGGUK What do you guys think? IMO, it looks much better than W J LEE Y P LEE J K KIM J C CHOI W H CHO E Y LEE J S PARK N I KIM C S LEE D G LEE K H SEOL
Yao is his surname. Also, I like the way jerseys are now...i dunno why....ive always liked the two syllable and last name deal. Reading names like YOUNGPYO and EULYONG will be a tough task for foreigners trying to figure out whos wearing what shirt, but i guess it at least clearly distinguishes everyone.
Eh, foreigners not being able to pronounce our names....that's their problem. Because then, what about Solskjaer and Ljungberg?! Listening to them struggling to pronounce our first names would be better than listening to them saying Lee, Lee, Lee, Park, Park, Park, Kim, Kim, Kim over and over again.
Yeah, I would totally support the JS Park way if we didn't have so many Parks, Lees and Kims. I think the first name with last name initilized will grow on me if I see it enough. It'd be more practical for sure. But then again, it isn't their surnames...
this is why i am in favor of bringing up guys like Namkung Do up to the NT just for the sake of screwing with american media. theyll have no idea what the last name is. with your idea...im also bracing for the "L Ho" that will cause many people to giggle.
amusing story.... i was watching the KOR-JPN game in a college res hall with some random people....anyway there was a graphic on the bottom right saying that due up for Korea in the bottom of the 8th was J Lee S Lee J Lee and this dumb girl sitting in the back goes..."oh thats so cool!!....are they all brothers???"
sky - I generally agree with you on a lot of topics, but I think the initials + the family name is better on the uniforms. It may seem cool to use the given names on the jerseys just to spite the western media, but at the end of the day, it really is just being stubborn and counter-productive if you think about it... the purpose of putting names and numbers on the back of jerseys is to identify players, so that fans, media, SCOUTS (hopefully from European leagues), and others can know who is who. Korean names spelled out phonetically in English generally look cumbersome and are not memorable. To add to the confusion, the spelling varies widely. In the business world, my American peers generally find it easy to use initials like CS Lee, DG Lee, etc. for Koreans. They can associate a name with a face that way. Announcers just need to do their homework before a match and understand that CS Lee is Chun-soo Lee, those lazy bastards.
But if you're not Korean, it's easy to make the mistake of thinking that J Lee, S Lee and J Lee are brothers. I mean if you saw Roberto Baggio and Dino Baggio, wouldn't you think the same? I did..until I found out that Dino Baggio had no relation to Roberto.
It's sad because there's no agreed upon standardized system to spell korean names and words in english. BTW, I cringed whenever the announcer for the Korea/Japan game kept pronouncing 'Bae' as Bay-eee! But by the same token, he pronounced the Japanese pitcher's name, 'ishii' as 'ishi-ee' lol
I actually think putting the hyphen eliminates a lot of doubt. Park Ji-Sung Ji-Sung Park PARK Ji-Sung PARK JI-SUNG JI-SUNG PARK There's no confusion. People see the "-" and they will learn to associate the hyhenated names with given names and non-hyphenated names with surnames. That solves like 95% of the problem. The idea of Capitalizing is cool ... like Park JiSung ... but on the back of a jersey it will get capitalized and look like crap .. KIM NAMIL and the non-Koreans would be all confused about how to pronounce it. Is it Na Mil or Nam Il? (with alliteration it sounds the same either way, but they'll find a way to mess it up). On a related note, when media don't know anything, they usually consult the AP Style Guide (or a Reuters Style Guide) ... so this may be an issue of idiots not following it or just a bad style that's been published.
Then what about two syllable surnames like Nam-goong? Hwang Bo Kwan, who scored a scorching FK goal, in '90WC, has surname of "hwang bo" not "hwang".
WTF? I've never met anyone with a two-syllable family name. Isn't his family name HWANG, given name Bo-Kwan? One syllabe given name, yes. Two syllable family name, no. Then again, I grew up in Hawaii so I'm used to meeting guys like Patrick Kim, Steve Lee, Kim Yoo (girl). I've only actually lived in Korea for a little more than 3 years and in that time I never met anyone with a two-syllable family name. Like I said, my solution fixes only 95% of the problem.
there are korean surnames with 2 syllables. My friend, her maiden last name was one...ugh I forget at the moment. but on that note look at ancient korean names like kwangaetto...
guys, YAO is his last name for sure. speaking of whom: the man's en fuego! if there's a public figure with enuff clout to force the media to change and become aware of this, it would be Yao. but it looks like he and his peeps have let it go. funny thing is, now the rest of the world would not be able to imagine calling him, the Westernized: Ming Yao. but for things like Gamecast, boxscores and whatnot, they should enter him in the system as Ming Yao, so that we don't have to keep reading, "FG, Houston. Ming." i think in the end, people need to keep pointing this out until it becomes common knowledge. a lot of writers and broadcasters are already getting it right. i mean, just thinking back to WC '02, as KOR kept progressing the pronounciations just got better and better up to the point where, some announcers even started pronouncing Choi as we do. but, that 1'st match against POL, they were b-r-u-t-a-l!
obviously his last name is Yao, thats the name embedded in his jersey. you wouldnt have Tracy McGrady's jersey have Tracy in the back, you have McGrady
* Hwangbo * Seon-u * Jegal * Seomun * Dokgo * Sagong * Namgung here are a few of a dozen or so 2 syllable korean surnames. now i remember, my friend's maiden surname was namgung. i want to name my future son "kwangaetto" btw. so if he stars in any major sport...that would be so coooool!