Talk:Ŭl P'aso

Reasons for move to "Eulpaso"

While the vast majority of Korean names today consist of a single-syllable surname followed by a given name of two syllables (or less commonly of one syllable), there is much uncertainty regarding the situation of Goguryeo names, especially as it is not necessarily a given that all prominent Goguryeo individuals had surnames.

The spelling "Eul Paso" would imply that Eul is the surname and Paso is the given name. While this has no doubt been hypothesized, in the absence of evidence the convention is to treat Eulpaso as a single indivisible name.

Some Goguryeo names are conventionally analyzed as being made up of a surname and a given name. For Yeon Gaesomun the fact that his sons also shared the character Yeon seems to point to Yeon indeed being the surname. For Eulji Mundeok the evidence is less clear and there are many hypotheses about whether Eulji is a surname, a title, a combination, etc., but the convention is to divide the name into two syllables as reflected in the romanized spelling.

No such convention exists for Eulpaso. The Dictionary of Standard Korean, the official dictionary published by the National Institute of the Korean Language, contains entries of biographical names as well, and indicates by hyphens the (presumed) division between surnames and given names. It has 연-개소문 for Yeon Gaesomun and 을지-문덕 for Eulji Mundeok, but 을파소 without hyphen for Eulpaso. This is why the romanized spelling should be "Eulpaso" without spaces. One finds plenty of examples of three-syllable names spellt without spaces in the names of Goguryeo kings, such as King Gogukcheon mentioned in this article. --Iceager (talk) 10:22, 11 April 2012 (UTC)