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Woo (Korean surname)

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Woo
Pronunciation/wu/
Origin
Word/nameKorean
MeaningDifferent depending on Hanja
Other names
Alternative spellingWu, Wo, Ou, U
Woo
Hangul
우
Hanja
宇, 雨, 優, 愚, 友, and others
Revised Romanizationu
McCune–Reischaueru
IPA[u]

Woo, also spelled Wu or Wo, Ou, U, is an uncommon Korean surname, a single-syllable Korean given name, and an element in many two-syllable Korean given names. As given name meaning differs based on the hanja used to write it. There are 60 hanja with the reading "woo"[1] on the South Korean government's official list of hanja which may be registered for use in given names.

As a surname

As a surname, Woo may be written with either of two hanja (禹 and 于). Each has one bon-gwan: for the former, Danyang, Chungcheongbuk-do, and for the latter, Mokcheon-eup (목천읍), Dongnam-gu, Cheonan, Chungcheongnam-do, both in what is today South Korea.[2] The 2000 South Korean census found 180,141 people with these family names.[3] In a study by the National Institute of the Korean Language based on 2007 application data for South Korean passports, it was found that 97.0% of people with this surname spelled it in Latin letters as Woo in their passports, while only 1.6% spelled it as Wu. Rarer alternative spellings (the remaining 1.4%) included U and Wo.[4]

People

People with these family names include:

As a given name

People

People with the single-syllable given name U or Woo include:

  • Choe U (1166–1249), military leader of Goryeo
  • Wang U (1079–1122), the personal name of King Yejong of Goryeo
  • Wang U (1365–1389), the personal name of King U of Goryeo
  • Yi U (1912–1945), member of the Korean Imperial household and grandson of Emperor Gojong
  • Park Woo (born 1972), South Korean wrestler

First syllable

Masculine

Second syllable

Masculine
Unisex

See also

References

  1. ^ 대법원 인명용 : 네이버 한자사전 "우"
  2. ^ "한국성씨일람" [List of Korean surnames]. Kyungpook National University. 2003-12-11. Retrieved 2013-10-30.
  3. ^ "성씨인구분포데이터 (Surname population and distribution data)". South Korea: National Statistics Office. Retrieved 2013-05-28.
  4. ^ 성씨 로마자 표기 방안: 마련을 위한 토론회 [Plan for romanisation of surnames: a preparatory discussion]. National Institute of the Korean Language. 25 June 2009. p. 60. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
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