Kwak (Korean surname)

The family name Kwak is written with a hanja meaning "city walls" (郭; 둘레 곽; dulle gwak; also called 외성 곽; oeseong gwak). The same character is also used to write the family names Guō in Mandarin Chinese, Kwok in Cantonese, Kaku in Japanese, and Quach in Vietnamese. The 2000 South Korean census found a total of 187,322 people and 58,396 households with this family name.[1] They identified with a number of different bon-gwan (seat of a clan lineage, for example the residence of an ancestor from whom the clan claims descent):

• Hyeonpung (Dalseong County): 140,283 people and 43,626 households.[1] They claim descent from Gwak Gyeong (곽경; 郭鏡), who came to the Korean peninsula from Song dynasty China during the reign of Injong of Goryeo (r. 1122–1146).[2] See Hyeonpung Gwak clan.
• Cheongju: 18,218 people and 5,601 households.[1] They claim descent from Gwak Sang (곽상; 郭祥), who served in the civil post of sijung under Heongang of Silla (r. 875–886).[3]
• Seonsan: 5,603 people and 1,743 households[1]
• Gyeongju: 5,086 people and 1,641 households[1]
• 22 bon-gwan each with fewer than 3,000 people: 17,942 people and 5,772 households[1]
• Other or unknown: 190 people and 13 households[1]

In a study by the National Institute of the Korean Language based on 2007 application data for South Korean passports, it was found that 75.4% of people with this family name spelled it in Latin letters as Kwak in their passports, while 14.4% spelled it in Revised Romanization as Gwak, and 5% spelled it Kwag. Rarer alternative spellings (the remaining 5.2%) included Kwack, Gak, Guak, Kwack, Gwag, Kag, Kawk, Koag, Koak, Kweak, and Kwug.[4] Other spellings include Kwalk, Kowalk. Notably, Kwak sounds similar and is spelled similar to Kwok (郭)in Cantonese.