Kim

Kim is the most common surname in Korea. As of the 2015 South Korean census, there were 10,689,959 people by this name in South Korea or 21.5% of the population. Although the surname is always pronounced the same, dozens of different family clans use it. The clan system in Korea is unique from the surname systems of other countries. Kim is written as 김 in both North and South Korea. The hanja for Kim, 金, can also be transliterated as 금 which means 'gold, metal, iron'. While romanized as Kim by 99.3% of the population, other rare variant romanizations such as Gim, Ghim, and Kin make up the remaining 0.7%.