# Romanization of 류



## parisaram

Hi,

According to usual rules, 류 should be romanized as "ryu" (Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer) or "lyu" (Yale).

But when 류 is a family name, I noticed that it is sometimes trancribed as "Yu" in documents that look serious: for example http://data.kdata.kr/page/Andongyangjindang .

Is a traditional transcription pour this syllable when used in family names ? Family names often have "irregular" transcriptions (Park for 팍, Lee or Rhee for 이...). Do you thing that "Yu" is a common transcription for 류 ?


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## Kross

(As far as I know some branch of the whole 류 family prefers using 유(You/Yu) for their surname. It is kind of tradition for them.) No, I have hardly seen someone using Yu for their family name 류. 류 is commonly spelled as Ryu, I think.


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## Environmentalist

Techically speaking, 류 sounds neither like ryu nor lyu.
If it should be romanized, ryu is the best way to say 류 in my opinion.
According to the official romanization of Korean (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_Romanization_of_Korean), 류 can be romanized as ryu.


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## Rance

Kross said:


> (As far as I know some branch of the whole 류 family prefers using 유(You/Yu) for their surname. It is kind of tradition for them.)



I would not call it a tradition.
Either they obliged to government policy or have always been 유.
The whole issue aroused when the government forced 두음법칙 to surnames around sixties which got further reinforced in 1992 with 금융실명제.
You could not register a surname with ㄹ to 호적, hence a lot of people had to adopt their surname replace ㄹ with ㄴ or ㅇ.


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## parisaram

Thanks! I didn't know about this 두음법칙. I'll try to read more about it.



Rance said:


> I would not call it a tradition.
> Either they obliged to government policy or have always been 유.
> The whole issue aroused when the government forced 두음법칙 to surnames around sixties which got further reinforced in 1992 with 금융실명제.
> You could not register a surname with ㄹ to 호적, hence a lot of people had to adopt their surname replace ㄹ with ㄴ or ㅇ.


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