Hangul Syllable Bag

Context decides what 박 means. Alone, 박 is the native Korean word for a gourd or calabash, including a dried shell used as a dipper or container. In a name it is the Korean surname written 朴, so the same block has a word sense and a name sense, not one universal translation.

The paper trail is old and layered. A 1489 Middle Korean text is cited as the earliest attestation of the gourd word, while the Samguk sagi, compiled in 1145, tells a Silla founder story that explains the surname 朴 through a calabash-shaped egg. Scholars caution against reading that ancient figure as carrying a modern-style surname, and another tradition links the name to an older word for bright, so the etymology is not settled.

Why is 박 written Park?

Park is an established English spelling of the surname 박. South Korea's Revised Romanization gives it as Bak: initial ㅂ is b, ㅏ is a, and final ㄱ is k, with existing personal spellings such as Park allowed to remain. Say the final as a short, unreleased k; the g in the Unicode label bag is a transliteration label, not the English noun.

Hangul's history explains the shape. The script was developed in 1443 and explained in 1446 to write Korean more directly than the Chinese-character-based Idu, Gugyeol, and Hyangchal practices before it. 박 is an assembled block — ㅂ + ㅏ + ㄱ — not a little picture of the gourd it can name.