NAME CHANGE Seung-Hui Cho

When police and Virginia Tech officials released the name of the person responsible for the deadliest mass murder by a lone gunman in U.S. history, they identified him as Cho Seung-Hui.
That's how The Associated Press and many other news organizations referred to him when reporting on the shootings. Because Korean names are traditionally written with the surname first, on second reference he was identified as Cho.
When Cho's family gave a statement to the AP on Friday, however, they said his name was Seung-Hui Cho.
Why the difference?
The Asian American Journalists Association notes that many Korean-American families adopt traditional American name orders and use their surnames last. The Cho family immigrated to the U.S. in 1992, when he was 8 years old.
The Associated Press will use the Cho family's preference. The spelling is an English language transliteration of the Korean language characters.
Source: Associated Press
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