There are various names of Korea in use today that are all derived from those of ancient Koreanic kingdoms and dynasties. The choice of name often depends on the language, whether the user is referring to either or both modern Korean countries, and even the user's political views on the Korean conflict.
The name Korea is an exonym, derived from Goryeo or Koryŏ. Both North Korea and South Korea use the name in English. However, in the Korean language, the two Koreas use different terms to refer to the nominally unified nation: Joseon or Chosŏn () in North Korea and Hanguk () in South Korea.
History
The earliest records of Korean history are written in Chinese characters called hanja. Even after the invention of hangul, Koreans generally recorded native Korean names with hanja, by translation of meaning, transliteration of sound, or even combinations of the two. Furthermore, the pronunciations of the same character may be somewhat different in Korean and its various dialects, and may have changed over time.
For all these reasons, in addition to the sparse and sometimes contradictory written records, it is often difficult to conclusively determine the original meanings or pronunciations of ancient names.
Ancient history Joseon Until 108 BC, northern Korea and part of Manchuria were controlled by Joseon. This region was later renamed to Gojoseon, with the addition of the prefix Go- (), meaning "old" or "ancient," used as a convention to distinguish it from the later Joseon dynasty. In contemporaneous Chinese records, Joseon was written as , which is pronounced in modern Korean as Joseon (). Historically, these characters have been read in the Korean language as 됴션 Dyosyen; 조선 Joseon is a recent spelling, reformed to reflect changes in the phonology of the Korean language. The name Joseon is also now still used by North Koreans and Koreans living in China and Japan to refer to the peninsula, and as the official Korean form of the name of Democratic People's Republic of Korea (Joseon). Cognates of Joseon are also used in many Asian languages, such as Japanese, Vietnamese, and Chinese, to refer to the Korean Peninsula.
Possibly the Chinese characters phonetically transcribed a native Korean name, perhaps pronounced something like "Jyusin". Some speculate that it corresponds to Chinese references to the ethnic group variously known as (, suksin), (, Jiksin) or (, Siksin), although these names likely describe the ancestors of the Jurchen people.
Other scholars believe was a (like Japanese kun'yomi) of the native Korean Asadal (), the capital of Gojoseon: asa being a hypothetical Altaic root word for "morning", and dal meaning "mountain", a common ending for Goguryeo place names (with the use of the character "fresh" to transcribe the final -dal syllable possibly having been based on the pronunciation of the ancient ancestor of Middle Korean dɔl- > Modern Korean 달 dal- "sweet").
An early attempt to translate these characters into English gave rise to the expression "The Land of the Morning Calm" for Korea, which parallels the expression "The Land of the Rising Sun" for Japan. While the wording is fanciful, the essence of the translation is valid.
Han Around the time of Gojoseon's fall, various chiefdoms in southern Korea grouped into confederacies, individually known as Mahan (), Jinhan (), and Byeonhan (), and collectively referred to as the Samhan (). While it cannot be stated conclusively, this Han is believed to have originated from a native Korean root word. That word may have carried the meaning "leader" or "great", as seen in related words maripgan ("king", archaic), hanabi ("grandfather", archaic), and Hanbat ("Great Field", an archaic name for Daejeon).
Han was variously transliterated in Chinese records as (), (), (), and (). The Korean name Han is etymologically disconnected from both the Chinese state 韓; hán, despite sharing the same Chinese character, and the Han (漢; hàn) dynasty along with the associated ethnicity.
Beginning in the 7th century, the name "Samhan" became synonymous with the Three Kingdoms of Korea. According to the Samguk sagi and Samguk yusa, Silla implemented a national policy, "Samhan Unification" (), to integrate Baekje and Goguryeo refugees. In 1982, a memorial stone dating back to 686 was discovered in Cheongju with an inscription: "The Three Han were unified and the domain was expanded." During the Later Silla period, the concepts of Samhan as the ancient confederacies and the Three Kingdoms of Korea were merged. In a letter to an imperial tutor of the Tang dynasty, Ch'oe Ch'i-wŏn equated Byeonhan to Baekje, Jinhan to Silla, and Mahan to Goguryeo. By the Goryeo period, Samhan became a common name to refer to all of Korea. In his Ten Mandates to his descendants, Wang Geon declared that he had unified the Three Han (Samhan), referring to the Three Kingdoms of Korea. Samhan continued to be a common name for Korea during the Joseon period and was widely referenced in the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty.
In China, the Three Kingdoms of Korea were collectively called Samhan since the beginning of the 7th century. The use of the name Samhan to indicate the Three Kingdoms of Korea was widespread in the Tang dynasty. Goguryeo was alternately called Mahan by the Tang dynasty, as evidenced by a Tang document that called Goguryeo generals "Mahan leaders" () in 645. In 651, Emperor Gaozong of Tang sent a message to the king of Baekje referring to the Three Kingdoms of Korea as Samhan. Epitaphs of the Tang dynasty, including those belonging to Baekje, Goguryeo, and Silla refugees and migrants, called the Three Kingdoms of Korea "Samhan", especially Goguryeo. For example, the epitaph of Go Hyeon (), a Tang dynasty general of Goguryeo origin who died in 690, calls him a "Liaodong Samhan man" (). The History of Liao equates Byeonhan to Silla, Jinhan to Buyeo, and Mahan to Goguryeo.
The "Han" in the names of the Korean Empire, Daehan Jeguk, and the Republic of Korea (South Korea), Daehanminguk or Hanguk, are named in reference to the Three Kingdoms of Korea, not the ancient confederacies in the southern Korean Peninsula.
Goryeo Around the beginning of the Common Era, remnants of the fallen Gojoseon were re-united and expanded by the kingdom of Goguryeo, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea. It, too, was a native Korean word, probably pronounced something like "Guri", transcribed with various hanja characters: , , or (, Goguryeo), (, Goryeo), (, Gori), or (, Guryeo). The source native name is thought to be either *Guru ("walled city, castle, fortress"; attested in Chinese historical documents, but not in native Korean sources) or *Gauri ("center, middle"; cf. Middle Korean *gaβɔndɔy and Standard Modern Korean gaunde ).고구려의 국명(國名) / The nation's name of Goguryeo
The theory that Goguryeo referenced the founder's surname has been largely discredited (the royal surname changed from Hae to Go long after the state's founding).
Revival of the names In the south, the Samhan resolved into the kingdoms of Baekje and Silla, constituting, with Goguryeo, the Three Kingdoms of Korea. In 668, Silla unified the three kingdoms, and reigned as Later Silla until 935. The name Samhan became synonymous with the Three Kingdoms of Korea beginning in the 7th century, and by the Goryeo period it became a common name to refer to all of Korea.
The succeeding dynasty called itself Goryeo (), and regarded itself as the successor to Goguryeo (). The name Goryeo was the shortened form of Goguryeo and was first used during the reign of Jangsu in the 5th century. Through the Silk Road trade routes, Persian and Arab merchants brought knowledge about Silla and Goryeo to India and the Middle East. Goryeo was transliterated into Italian as "Cauli", the name Marco Polo used when mentioning the country in his Travels, derived from the Chinese form Gāolí.
In 1392, a new dynasty established by a military coup revived the name Joseon (), after the ancient state Gojoseon. The alternative name for this nation could have been Hwaryeong, but in the end, Taejo of Joseon decided to go with Joseon. The hanja for Joseon have been translated into English as "morning calm" and sometimes rather as "morning freshness" or "morning radiance" and Korea's English nickname became "The Land of the Morning Calm"; however, this interpretation is not often used in the Korean language, and is more familiar to Koreans as a back-translation from English. Only the interpretation as "morning freshness" is plainly viable, with "morning calm" and "morning radiance" being rather fanciful interpretations. The nickname "Land of the Morning Calm" was coined by Percival Lowell in his book, "Chosön, the Land of the Morning Calm," published in 1885.
In 1897, the nation was renamed Daehan Jeguk (, known in English as Korean Empire). Han had been selected in reference to Samhan, specifically the Three Kingdoms of Korea, not the ancient confederacies in the southern Korean Peninsula. So, Daehan Jeguk () means it is an empire that rules the area of Three Kingdoms of Korea. This name was used to emphasize independence of Korea, because an empire cannot be a subordinate country.
20th century When the Korean Empire came under Japanese rule in 1910, the name reverted to Joseon (officially, the Japanese pronunciation Chōsen). During this period, many different groups outside of Korea fought for independence, the most notable being the Daehanminguk Imsi Jeongbu (), known in English as the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea ( = 'people' + country/state' = 'republic' in East Asian capitalist societies).
Korea became independent after World War II (1945) and the country was then divided.
In 1948, the South adopted the provisional government's name of Daehanminguk (; see above), known in English as the Republic of Korea (ROK). Daehanminguk is sometimes used by South Koreans as a metonym to refer to the Korean nation as a whole, rather than just the South Korean state.
Meanwhile, the North became Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk (), translated in English as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Each component of the name was carefully selected. Chosŏn was the natural choice for the short form, "Korea", since it had been used throughout the colonial period to denote the Peninsula. For the long form of the name, Konghwaguk was used for republic because of its leftist connotations over Minguk. North Koreans wanted to adopt something that had already been used in the Eastern Bloc to borrow legitimacy. A choice was presented between a "People's Republic" and a "Democratic Republic", because they had been used in the names of the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic of Soviets and the Finnish Democratic Republic, respectively. "People's Republic" was favored by Pak Hon-yong of the Communist Party of Korea and it had already been used by the temporary People's Republic of Korea (PRK) formed in Seoul after liberation. "Democratic Republic", on the other hand, was associated with Mao Zedong's concept of New Democracy, which influenced Kim Tu-bong of the New People's Party of Korea. After his party merged with the Workers' Party of North Korea, the concept found its way to Kim Il Sung's parlance. Kim began to speak of a "Democratic People's Republic". This was echoed by what the true authorities of the country, the Soviet Civil Administration, prescribed, albeit in different order: "People's-Democratic Republic" (). Thus the name of the country became the "Korea(n) Democratic People's Republic" in Korean and "Korean People's-Democratic Republic" in Russian so that both parties could claim that they were behind the coining.
Current usage
East Asia Korea