Korean Family Words: Titles for Mom, Dad & Siblings

Korean family titles do something English doesn't: many of them change depending on whether the speaker is male or female. Here's the full set — parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, and uncles — with romanization and clear usage notes.

Updated

If you've watched K-dramas, you've heard 오빠, 언니, and 엄마 a hundred times — and probably noticed that the same person gets called different things by different people. Korean family words carry more information than their English equivalents: they often encode the speaker's gender, the relative age, and even which side of the family someone is on. The payoff is that once you learn the system, you understand relationships instantly. This guide walks through parents, grandparents, siblings, and extended family, with romanization throughout.

Parents (엄마/아빠 vs 어머니/아버지)

Each parent has a warm casual form and a formal respectful form. You'll use the casual ones with your own parents in daily life, and the formal ones in polite contexts or when talking about someone else's parents.

  • 엄마eomma

    Mom (casual)

    How you address or refer to your own mother warmly.

  • 어머니eomeoni

    Mother (formal)

    Respectful — used for others' mothers or in polite settings.

  • 아빠appa

    Dad (casual)

  • 아버지abeoji

    Father (formal)

  • 부모님bumonim

    Parents (with honorific -님)

    The polite way to say 'parents' as a pair.

Siblings: the part that changes with the speaker

This is the feature that surprises learners most. For older siblings, the word you use depends on your own gender. A female speaker says 오빠 and 언니; a male speaker says 형 and 누나. Younger siblings, by contrast, are just 동생 for everyone.

  • 오빠oppa

    Older brother (said by a female)

    A woman also calls an older male friend or boyfriend 오빠.

  • 형hyeong

    Older brother (said by a male)

  • 누나nuna

    Older sister (said by a male)

  • 언니eonni

    Older sister (said by a female)

    A woman also calls an older female friend 언니.

  • 남동생 / 여동생namdongsaeng / yeodongsaeng

    Younger brother / younger sister

    동생 (dongsaeng) alone covers either; add 남 (male) or 여 (female) to specify.

A useful way to lock this in: the woman's words start soft (오빠, 언니), the man's words are 형 and 누나. So if you hear a character say 오빠, you instantly know a female is speaking — a tiny detail that makes K-dramas much easier to follow.

Grandparents

Grandparents have a base term plus prefixes that distinguish the maternal and paternal sides — 외 (oe) marks the mother's side. In everyday speech, though, many families just use 할머니 and 할아버지 without the prefix.

  • 할머니halmeoni

    Grandmother

  • 할아버지harabeoji

    Grandfather

  • 외할머니 / 외할아버지oehalmeoni / oeharabeoji

    Maternal grandmother / grandfather

    The prefix 외 (oe) marks the mother's side of the family.

Aunts, uncles & extended family

Extended-family terms get detailed in Korean — there are different words depending on which parent the relative belongs to. Here are the most useful everyday ones; 이모 and 삼촌 in particular are also used warmly for close family friends.

  • 이모imo

    Aunt (mother's sister)

    Also used affectionately for close female friends of the family.

  • 고모gomo

    Aunt (father's sister)

  • 삼촌samchon

    Uncle (father's brother, typically unmarried)

    Also used casually for a friendly older man, like 'mister.'

  • 이모부 / 고모부imobu / gomobu

    Uncle by marriage (aunt's husband)

  • 사촌sachon

    Cousin

Titles, not names

The biggest mindset shift for English speakers is that Koreans address family members by their title, almost never by their first name. You call your older sister 언니, not her name; you call your mother 엄마. Using a first name for an elder sounds shockingly rude. This same logic — addressing people by their relationship and rank rather than their name — runs through all of Korean, which is why it's worth understanding alongside our guide to Korean honorifics (존댓말 vs 반말). For the broader politeness and address-term picture, that guide is the natural next read.

Make the titles automatic

Family words are high-frequency and gender-dependent, which makes them perfect material to drill until they're instant rather than something you stop and work out. Our spaced-repetition vocabulary deck reviews each term right before you'd forget it, so 오빠 vs 형 and 이모 vs 고모 stop being a guess. Then put them to use in AI character conversation, where you can talk about your own family and have a character address you with the right title in context.

Practice family talk in real conversations

Chat with an AI character in Korean and use family titles in context — the fastest way to make 오빠, 언니, 이모, and 삼촌 feel natural.

Start a Korean conversation →

Frequently asked questions

How do you say 'family' in Korean?

Family is 가족 (gajok). 'My family' is 우리 가족 (uri gajok) — Koreans say 우리 ('our') rather than 'my' for things like family, country, and home. 식구 (sikgu) is a near-synonym that emphasizes the people who live and eat together under one roof.

Why do 오빠/형 and 누나/언니 depend on the speaker?

Korean sibling terms encode the speaker's gender, not just the sibling's. A female calls an older brother 오빠 (oppa) and an older sister 언니 (eonni); a male calls an older brother 형 (hyeong) and an older sister 누나 (nuna). So the same older brother is 오빠 to his sister and 형 to his brother. Younger siblings are simply 동생 (dongsaeng) regardless of speaker.

What's the difference between 엄마 and 어머니?

Both mean 'mother.' 엄마 (eomma) is the warm, casual form — like 'mom' — used when speaking to or about your own mother. 어머니 (eomeoni) is the more formal, respectful form — closer to 'mother' — and is what you use for someone else's mother or in polite settings. The same split applies to 아빠 (appa, dad) and 아버지 (abeoji, father).

Do Koreans really call non-relatives 오빠 or 언니?

Yes. Family titles extend to close non-relatives all the time: a woman may call a slightly older male friend or boyfriend 오빠, and an older female friend 언니. It signals closeness and a small age gap. This is one reason the terms appear constantly in K-dramas and K-pop, even between people who aren't actually related.

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