I don’t know about legality, but most forms online in Japan accept 4 characters at most for family name; the vast majority of people have two characters with one and three being less common. Okinawa, I think has the highest instance of 4-character surnames, but I may be wrong on that.
I was living in Seoul many (many) moons ago. I remember all forms having three character spaces each for first and last names. Fun times squeezing in a standard western ten-twenty latin character names. Even transliterated to hangul my name wouldn’t fit. It was always a small thrill if the person behind the counter would look terrified and accept it without question or get pissy and refuse it without mercy.
In South Korea it’s actually against the law for children to be given names longer than 5 syllables.
Fuck the government, I’ll call my child Haneulbyeollimgureumhaennimbodasarangseureouri if I want!
Han gonna grow up OK. Even if a little resentful.
하늘별림구름핸님보다사랑스러우리
[more lovely than] sky star cloud god?
Airsick lowlanders…
I’m currently rereading the stormlight archive atm lol
I don’t know about legality, but most forms online in Japan accept 4 characters at most for family name; the vast majority of people have two characters with one and three being less common. Okinawa, I think has the highest instance of 4-character surnames, but I may be wrong on that.
I was living in Seoul many (many) moons ago. I remember all forms having three character spaces each for first and last names. Fun times squeezing in a standard western ten-twenty latin character names. Even transliterated to hangul my name wouldn’t fit. It was always a small thrill if the person behind the counter would look terrified and accept it without question or get pissy and refuse it without mercy.
Based