[KS] -열 / -렬 (question to linguists & Korean native speakers)

[Frank Hoffmann]

Dear All:

In between all the big topics, here a small detail question, a  
question mostly to native speakers of Korean and linguists:

I know, we all know, that in the North they always use the harder  
variation for the pronunciation of certain syllables (resp. Han'gŭl  
rendering of Chinese charcters): 리 Ri instead of 이 Yi, 력사 ryŏksa  
instead of 역사 yŏksa, and so on. So far so good.

But the following case that just came up confuses me--this is about  
the usage in SOUTH Korea only:
金昌烈 -- a well established painter in South Korea, born in 1929, known  
for his modernist brush-and-ink paintings, usually showing water drops.
You find most websites giving his name in Han'gŭl as 김찰열 (Kim  
Ch'angyŏl). But maybe about one third of websites or entries in  
encyclopedias give it as 김창렬 (Kim Ch'angnyŏl). [This is unrelatd to  
how he himself transcribes his name into Latin script.]

Can anyone explain the situation? Are there any rules in South Korea  
(for names), and if not, if this is up to every individual to decide  
(which is my impression, thus far), then how come that with such a  
prominent name we still see these variations? And finally, how do you  
handle such cases when you refer to such people (where there are such  
variations ... again, I just talk about Han'gŭl variations, not  
transcription systems)?

Thanks for your input!

Frank