My name in Kanji

[nagman58]

I am trying to get my name in kanji, I use to have a hon with it but can't find it and would like find out what it is.

My email address is: [email protected]

William Nagaki

 

[Nahoko]

Hi William,

there are actually a lot of ways to write your family name in kanji. For the two most common check the image I attached below.

I hope we could help you!

 

[deborah gormley]

this has made me curious!! can any name(such as my own hehe) be translated into kanji?

If so (Nahoko hehe)if the translation is not a lot of hard work ect, and you have enough time would you have an attempt at mine, this would be greatly greatly appreciated, Thank you!

 

[grza]

That's a good question!

Reminds me of when I worked in Japan for the first time a couple of years ago. Anyone who has lived there will know that in order to open bank accounts etc. you need to have a stamp with your 'signature' on it, kind of like an old-fashioned official seal. I think most foreigners have their name in katakana, but the people in charge at my language school used to have fun in preparing inkan (as the stamps are known) with the new teachers' names in Kanji.
For any sound that can be represented in Japanese there are usually multiple kanji that can be pronounced that way, so making a foreign name in kanji was simply a matter of choosing from those available for each sound within the name in order to come up with something which had some sort of meaning.

My surname is Lord, they came up with the characters "狼怒" (first one meaning 'wolf', pronounced 'ro-' second meaning 'anger', pronounced 'do'). Doesn't fit my personality so well but it amused the cashiers at the bank every time.

My co-worker, whose surname was King, was proud to choose the kanji "金愚"(comes across as something like 'golden fool').

I've had a bit of a thing, but can't come up with anything good for your name, Debs, my knowledge of kanji readings isn't good enough to come up with anything that isn't nonsense.

Maybe some kind of native Japanese person can help?

 

[Nahoko]

Hi Deborah,

sorry for the late reply, my job is keeping me very busy lately.

Although it is possible, writing non-Japanese names in kanji is quite uncommon. Actually a lot of foreign names cannot be transcribed at all. As Grza said, we use katakana for foreign names and words.

I hope you are not disappointed if I used katakana and not kanji, but find your name below:

 

[deborah gormley]

nahoko, that's great. Thanks ever so much


I really didn't think it could be done. You said, "I hope you not disappointed I used katakana" well, I'm delighted, and thanks again.

I wonder if I've unintentionally started a quest for name translation

 

[Nahoko]

Debs,

it was my pleasure.

 

[nukleareraffe]

you could also try to find out which kanji the katakana your name uses derivated from and use these to write your name. Though mostly the reading of the Kanji will be the same as the katakana, i'm afraid no japanese will be able to read it properly. there's also a small chance that the kanji composite will make any sense

 

[deborah gormley]

@grza
go ahead if you can. If it's total nonsense, then we'll have a giggle at it, hehe

don't worry, my sense of humour is at the best times warped, so I'll enjoy what ever you come up with

 

[samuraitora]

Does anyone know of a good site to find your name in kanji???

 

[thomas]

I've found this page a while ago, but it's Chinese

=> Get a Chinese Name

 

[grza]

I've seen a book advertised on amazon called 'your name in kanji' or something like that, but I don't know about websites.

As Nahoko said, it's very unusual to write foreign names in Kanji, but not totally unheard of (an example in the news at the end of last year was the Brazilian born Japanese international footballer Alessandro Santos or 'Alex' who adopted the kanji 三都主 for his name, the characters meaning 'three', 'metropolis/Tokyo' and 'master' or something like that), plus its entertaining to choose kanji for your name: you just have to find characters you like which can be pronounced the right way.

To write Debs' name, you need kanji for the sounds 'gou' 'mu' and 'ri' for 'Gormley'. (I gave up on your first name, mainly cos I could find so few kanji for 'de')
You could have something like:

豪夢利

This uses the 3 characters 'gou' meaning magnificent, 'mu' meaning dream and then 'ri' meaning benefit or advantage.
This is just a result of a quick look in my kanji dictionary, I'm sure someone can come up with something better, but at least they all mean nice things. (I know that the final character isn't the usual long sound, as seen in Nahoko's katakana, but I reckon you can get away with a short 'ri' in Debs' surname, especially as making the sound long would mean adding an extra kanji!).

To give you an idea of other less-nice characters that could be used, 'gou' could also mean torture, 'mu' could also mean spear, and 'ri' could be the character for diarrhoea!

PS I've written the kanji in normal Japanese text. I dunno if you can see that, Debs? Unfortunately, I don't have any software on this machine to capture it as an image...

 

[deborah gormley]

Lolol, well, grza, that's brilliant. I must say I prefer the nice one lolol the other one just isn't me lol:box:

thanks for your effort. I greatly appreciate it. There I learned something new today as well

 

[samuraitora]

I have found a pretty good site with around 4000 names in a database with image kanji for the fontless browser.

http://www.teglet.co.jp/eng/getname.htm

tell me what you think

 

[Kiryoku]

Well, I did a little try and I hope you like it.
Your name means "The lightning stick that goes"
Anyway, it's the best I could do.
Enjoy.

 

[deborah gormley]

ahhhhh!! thats excellent kiryoku, I couldnt get my printer set up quick enough,lolol


I now have three different ways to write my name and its great,lol of course I'l have to practice the signs but I'l have an attempt that would all be proud of lol.

@Nahoko @grza @samuraitora @nuklearaffe @thomas @KiryokuTHANK YOU!!!!

 

[Kiryoku]

Waiiiii!!!!~
I'm happy you liked it so much!
*hugs Debs*

 

[samuraitora]

http://www.yournameinjapanese.com
this is a cool link. it is based on common names though

 

[jpf98]

Hi Deborah,

You may like to consider Debbie for translating into kanji.

The result comes out as DE BI which can mean Exit/Beautiful.

Although Exit sounds bad, it's very common in Japanese names. The name is also a good translation (Japanese people like it).

I'm the co-developer of yournameinjapanese.com and we're going to be putting up some pages in the near future to show you the rules on writing the kanji (the stroke order).

Also, samuraitora, thanks for the comment. We currently have about 1000 names in the database, but we hope to increase that in the near future to 2 or 3000.

 

[V.I.B]

This particular section is just so interesting~! ^^ Can anyone help me with my name as well? (sweat) I just posted another similar post in another thread so being lazy me I will just create a link to that post here.. hope u guys dun mind.. (--||b) It will take some time to retype everything again... T_T

The link to my post (#16): Click here

Originally posted by grza
PS I've written the kanji in normal Japanese text, I dunno if you can see that, Debs? Unfortunately, I don't have any software on this machine to capture it as an image...

There's a trick one here that you can use. (^_~) No software needed. I use that all the time when my laptop runs out of memory for other software.. Print Screen (PrtSc) the word you had typed and then just paste (Ctrl V) onto your paint program (I believe most OS comes with the basic "paint" program.. Then adjust the size and save it as a jpg file. (^.^)V

 

[Reda]

my name is REDA..can anyone help me find suitable kanjis?

 

[sl0815]

How about these kanji?

玲妥


MfG Jan

 

[ralian]

This particular section is just so interesting~! ^^ Can anyone help me with my name as well? (sweat) I just posted another similar post in another thread so being lazy me I will just create a link to that post here.. hope u guys dun mind.. (--||b) It will take some time to retype everything again... T_T

The link to my post (#16): Click here

Hi, V.I.B. so your name is 「ウォンペイフェン」
Perhaps you have to change the pronunciation to 「オンヘイヘン」in order to search Kanji in Japanese software. Then you can find something like:「音陛偏」
It is because Japanese does not have pronunciations such as 「ウォ」「ペイ」「フェン」. (However, they used to have those pronunciations long time ago. In fact, "haha (mother)" used to be pronounced "fafa".)
I hope this helped.

 

[Reda]

How about these kanji?

玲妥


MfG Jan

ありがとうございます...after looking up the meanings..it does make sense !!

 

[Tenshi]

can sombody find the kanji for BERT and CHRISTINE

I ll be verry thank full for it