>Companies in English education, tourism, trade or other globally focused industries typically have English nickname policies. They want to accommodate foreign business partners who can’t decipher between Lee Ji-yeong and Lee Ji-yeon. “They’re thoughtful people,” Hong said. “It’s to be kind to foreign people.”

I lived in Korea for about a year and a half and Korean names were near impossible for me to remember en mass. That's because all Koreans have 3 syllable names, and they all use the same few syllables. To make it worse, many of these syllables sound alike!!!

When you have to remember the names of 20 or more people and they're like

"Kim-Yeon Lee" "Kim-Yeung Ye" "Kim-Hyun Ji"

I don't know how a non-Korean can keep up with that for any length of time when it involves a large number of Koreans. Many Koreans who speak English have English names they choose for interacting with foreigners and none of them seem to mind. It is very considerate of them because having to remember their Korean names can be painful for non-Koreans. I imagine it's also because my difficulty with Korean names was not something unique. It's probably something they noticed among many foreigners and compensated for.