Anthroponymic research was not the central area of Korean study. It was a field largely neglected before the 1970s. With the increasing public awareness of the study of Korean names in the 1980s, the academic interest in anthroponymy increased as well. Not until in the 1990s had the academic discussion on anthroponyms become a major area of the study. Since the 2000s, as the scope of the research broadened, a number of papers have been published.: Scholars have focused on the particular areas of Anthroponymics such as the process by which names are made, the historical change in names, and the unique characteristics of Korean names. It belongs to the sub-category of lexicology in Korean study; however, there is no lexicological study dedicated to the study of personal names.