Yoo (Korean surname)

Yoo, Yu or Ryu
Hangul
유 or 류
Hanja
Revised RomanizationYu or Ryu
McCune–ReischauerYu or Ryu

Yoo or Yu, or sometimes Ryu or Ryoo, is the English transcription of several Korean surnames written as or in hangul. As of 2000, roughly a million people are surnamed Yoo in South Korea, making up approximately 2% of the population. Of those, the most common is Ryu (Hanja: , Hangul: ),[1] with more than six hundred thousand holders, whereas Yoo (Hanja: , 余 Hangul: ) accounts for about one hundred thousand.

The family name Yoo can be represented by any of the four hanja: (), , and , each with a different meaning. In Korean, the characters and refer to (Yoo) or (Ryu) and are spelled as such because of the first initial sound rule (두음 법칙) in Korean, whereas the characters and refer only to (Yoo). Some of these characters are used to write the Chinese surnames Liu ( or ) and Yu (,余).

Notable (Ryu) clans include the Munhwa Ryu clan and the Pungsan Ryu.

  1. ^ A rank 19th with 603,084 people, KOSTAT (Korea National Statistical Office), 2000.