Seong

Seong (성 in Korean Hangul) is a Korean first name and also an uncommon family name. As a given name, it can be written with various hanja, most commonly 成 meaning "completed, finished, succeeded" (), though other characters with the same pronunciation are also used. It appears both as a single-character name and, more frequently, in combination with another character.

Etymology

The hanja seong conveys the notion of accomplishment or achievement. In Chinese, the same character is pronounced ching1 in Cantonese and chéng in Mandarin, from which the Chinese names Cheng and Sheng ( are derived. Korean Seong and its variant Sung thus share a common Sino-Xenic origin with these Chinese equivalents.

Usage

Seong is recorded as both a first name and a surname. According to the 2000 South Korean Census, there were 167,903 people with the surname Seong, representing a modest increase of six percent from 1985. The majority traced their origins to the Changnyeong bon-gwan in South Gyeongsang Province; notably, the district where this clan reached its highest population density was Changnyeong County itself, where 3.61% of the local population bore the name. The surname is also romanized as Sung or Song in various contexts: a government study from 2007 found that 67.4% of passport applicants chose the spelling Sung, though the Revised Romanization prefers Seong.

Related Forms

Related names include the Chinese Cheng (common as a family name) and Sheng ( alongside the Korean variant Sung. These share the same underlying hanja, underscoring the shared literacy heritage across East Asian cultures.

• Meaning: "Completed, succeeded" (成)
• Type: First name (unisex) and surname
• Origin: Korean (Sino-Korean)
• Usage regions: Korea