One etymological hypothesis suggests that the name "Seorabeol" might have been the origin of the word "Seoul", meaning "capital city", and also the name of the present capital of South Korea, which was previously known as Hansung or Hanyang. The name of the Silla capital may have changed into its Late Middle Korean form "Syeo-beul" (셔블), meaning "royal capital city," which might have changed to "Syeo-ul" (셔울) soon after, and finally resulted in "Seoul" (서울 "seo-ul") in the Modern Korean language.