Ha-neul

Ha-neul, also spelled Ha-nul, is a Korean unisex name. Unlike most Korean given names, which are composed of two single-syllable Sino-Korean morphemes each written with one hanja, Ha-neul is an indigenous Korean name: a single two-syllable word meaning "sky". As a name, it may loosely be interpreted as an exhortation to "spread your dreams high like the sky". It is one of a number of such native names (called 고유어 이름, goyueo ireum), along with others such as Seul-ki ("wisdom") and Sora ("conch shell"), which have become more popular in South Korea in recent decades.

In some cases, parents also choose to register hanja to represent these indigenous names, picking them solely for their pronunciation. However, this is difficult for the name Ha-neul because there is only one extremely rare character with the reading "neul" (乻), and it does not appear on the South Korean government's official list of hanja which may be registered for use in given names. Instead they must choose hanja which correspond to the homophonous but differently-spelled "Han-eul" (한을, for example 罕忔 or 寒乙).