The government will unify the Romanization for all of its national athletes in time for the London Olympic Games, officials said Friday.
The government hopes to reduce confusion with official rosters, as currently different organizations and events use different Romanization for the same athlete.
According to a government official quoted in news reports, the government plans to start the project as early as this May and will have the names unified on both rosters and uniforms by the Olympics. The 2012 London Summer Olympics kick off in July.
“There are a lot of instances where athlete names are different on their uniform, official roster and TV broadcasts,” said a government official as quoted by the Yonhap News Agency.
“In international events the names of our athletes are spelled different for different events. This is why foreigners can’t help but be confused by the names of our players.”
During the 2008 Beijing Olympics athletes like Lee Yong-dae (badminton), Kim Hyun-soo (baseball) and Park Tae-hwan (swimming) had their names arranged in different formats on their jerseys.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism decided to write athletes’ names according to the Revised Romanization set in 2000.
According to the ministry, first names will be written as one or hyphenated, while on jerseys a player’s last name will be spelled out followed by their first initial.
Civil servants will also be required to have their names spelled in similar fashion.
Those who wish to change the Romanization of their name in their passports, must first receive approval as well.
By Robert Lee (
robert@heraldcorp.com)
