Owner review 12 — rulings (2026-10-13)
Status: Active · Date: 2026-10-13 · Answers the owner's ask for plain two-syllable Korean words that non-Koreans can say comfortably (their example: Maru, for a separate healthcare app). Evidence: Korean words, Korean names abroad. Companion: review-11 rulings.
Order of work (the owner's): the name comes first. Domain searches and the other checks come after the pick. This round therefore cut only on famous brands and bad meanings.
What the round did
- Generated 145 words, mostly native Korean, with meanings from 표준국어대사전.
- Kept the words a non-Korean can say on sight: consonant-vowel shapes, only the vowels a, i, u, o, e, and no eo, eu, ae, ui or tense consonants. 59 survived.
- Checked each survivor's spelling in about a dozen languages.
- Cut on meaning:
- 하자 (a defect);
- 바람 (also infidelity);
- 제비 (slang for a gigolo);
- 무리 (Japanese "impossible").
- Cut as famous brands: Woori, Hana, Bada, Sora, Muji, Nuri, Gaon.
- Lost in Latin: 오름 had the best story ("rising"), but its ㅡ vowel does not survive in Latin.
- Maru is excluded. Anything that rhymes with it (Naru, Duru) is marked down, so the two brands are not confused.
The plain Korean words
| Rank | Name | Meaning | Against |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Madang (마당) | The yard where people gather (and 한마당, a big gathering): what a club is. | Six letters, at the edge of the screen. A very common word, so harder to find in search. A house word like Maru, so the two brands may read as siblings. |
| 2 | Duri (두리) | Said as 둘이, "the two of us": doubles, and the 두 of 두 개 더. | Malay "thorn"; an app called 두리요 sits in nightlife; 둘이 can read as a couple. |
| 3 | Dodam (도담) | From 도담도담, a child growing well: a little better each week. | Koreans may hear a baby or parenting word, and our members are mostly 40 to 60. |
The next two are on the board:
- Doran (도란, from 도란도란, people chatting warmly), which is never said on its own;
- Boda (보다, "more than"), which reads as a grammar particle.
Korean word or foreign word?
The evidence does not decide. It narrows the choice.
For the Korean word:
- it can be your own word;
- its meaning is true and plain to members;
- it says as easily as Enda or Mazi when it passes the rules above.
Against it:
- these are all dictionary words, so they search and register less easily than a foreign or coined word;
- the brands that went global on the name alone mostly replaced the Korean word (Gaon became Circle, and 당근 became Karrot abroad);
- Hyundai shows what mispronunciation costs;
- under US practice, a foreign word can be judged by its translation, so a word meaning "club" or "together" risks being called descriptive.
None of the top three describes the service. No study was found of how English, Spanish or Japanese speakers misread romanised Korean, so the pronunciation rules are drawn from the Revised Romanization rules and from the examples.
One rule from the evidence lane is not adopted: "avoid r and l in the middle of a word." Between vowels, ㄹ is a single tap. Spanish and Japanese speakers make that sound natively, and English speakers come close (Maru, Hulu).
On the board
"Name candidates" shows:
- the two directions, each ranked: plain Korean (Madang, Duri, Dodam, Doran, Boda) and short foreign (Enda, Mazi, Mera);
- the pairing card, with the first pick of each direction;
- today's name, TwoMore, for comparison.
Open for you
- Which direction: a plain Korean word (Madang, Duri, Dodam) or a short foreign word (Enda, Mazi, Mera)?
- Your favourite, after which we search domains and run the checks.
- Should this app and Maru Health read as one family (Madang sits beside Maru as a house word), or stay apart?