I need help with the lettering of a tattoo i want to get (have read tattoo post)

Hey there,

Before anything i would like to say sorry that im one of those members who is asking for help with a tattoo, but this is important to me and currently this is my best hope of getting some good help.
i have decided i want to get a tattoo, in the memory of my Dog Sammy.
please don't comment on that it would be a stupid thing to get a tattoo for a dog or something like that, that is my decision and i stand with it.
I have decided i do not want Sammy just as a name, but much rather i want the meaning of his name in Japanese lettering / symbols.
Sammy comes from the Hebrew of Samson, and means as much as "bright sun".
Now i need help finding the right wording/lettering/symbols for the tattoo.
I've put bright sun through the translator.
It gives me the following: 明るい太陽 personally i don't like the way it looks to me as there are two complex and three simple symbols in there.
I've translated each word by itself and made a list of all translations i found for each word.
Here are the lists for each word.
Bright
• 明るい
• 輝かしい
• まぶしい
• 賢い
• 輝いている
• 明朗
• ビビッド
• ブリリアント
• ぱっちり
• さやか
• 燦爛たる
• 出来
• 燦々たる
• 煌々たる
• 艶々
• 艶艶
• 独創性に富む

Sun
• 日
• サン
• 陽
• 天日
• 日輪
• 天道
• 御日様
• 天道様
• 輝煌帝

now i do not only want it to look good in that way but of course the meaning needs to be the right one meaning it still supposed to read "bright sun" in when translated.

i think that 明朗陽 looks quite good and according to Google translate it still means Bright sun, but as i do not trust these translators that much i need your help. (This means you can only help if you are Japanese, or can read and write and understand it well or so.

Please help me and feel free to suggest combinations which make sense, which you think look better and still have the same meaning. (im open for both kanji, and Katakana suggestions)
This really means a lot to me as i was extremely close to Sammy.
i want to have the tattoo on the underside of my left forearm close to my wrist, and it will not be very big.

I appreciate your help,

André

Not sure what the right kanji would be, but I'm glad to see how much you have thought about actually getting a kanji tattoo!

Good luck, and I'm sure that some members will be a great help... those whom are not (well, you can just ignore them )

明朗陽 is wonderful and good looking, make you sure you get them nice and big in print font.

for simplified Chinese there is 红太阳 if you want to keep up with the fashion trend, because Japanese Kanji tattoo is so 1990s.

Just a thought ?

I have seen some amazing "picture" tattoos of animals lately. Why not get a picture of your dog tattooed and everyone will know what it is and you will have his memory forever. Then, people won't be asking you what the kanji is about and you won't end up with something saying "guilded duck" or some other unrecognisable kanji on your body forever.

Uncle Frank

As this would be my first tattoo, i dont want it to be too big, also it is very difficult to depict my dog as a tattoo because, him being a bouvier, he had a lot of fur, and was quite unshapely.
Its a nice suggestion, but i would like to stick to a kanji tattoo

Sorry about your loss, but what's wrong with "Sammy"? Or have it done in Hebrew.

Uncle Frank said:

...Then, people won't be asking you what the kanji is about...

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That defeats the purpose. People don't get tattoos to not talk about them.

Mike Cash said:

Sorry about your loss, but what's wrong with "Sammy"? Or have it done in Hebrew.

Click to expand...

like most people they think Chinese characters ie Kanji looks cool. Probably why OP insists he wants it done in Kanji and not in Katakana.

It's not Japanese convension to literally translate names into Kanji, imaging calling someone named Alexander or Alex 人間の保護者, just his name means "protector of man" in Greek.

I personally don't know any foreign names gets translated based on meaning into Kanji , western names have always been transcribed into Katakana based on pronunciation.

If your dog had a Japanese name, than sure Kanji would be fine (though pets still have their names in Katakata like the famous Hachiko). But your dog's name was Hebrew. If neither you nor your dog have Japanese heritage, then I think permanently inscribing your dog's name in another alien language would be both a disrespect to your dog and to the Japanese culture. Might sound hash but I certainly don't want my name to be translated and inscribed in Arabic or Russian literally when I die.

And you said Sammy mean "bright sun" in Hebrew however I just checked on Wikipedia, Sammy is a derivative of Samuel and it is Hebrew name meaning "name of God" or "God has heard". Samuel (name) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now the Sun, is very important to the Japanese people, as you probably tell by their national flag, heck even Japan in Japanese contain the Kanji for Sun.
There is the Kanji 日 for the Sun (this kanji can mean day, Sun and Japan and is the most used Kanji in Japanese language), the physical Sun 陽 (usually used with another Kanji) , the rising Sun 旭.

Since you want "bright sun", personally I think the best translation is still 明るい太陽, however you said that you didn't like the look of it because it contains hiragana or in your words "simple symbols", and you wanted something else without changing the meaning. I mean yeah of course, Japanese writing system was designed for the aesthetics of patterns of ink on your skin. So it seems to me that you dislike "simple symbol" ie the kana and prefer all Kanji like 明朗陽 (which also requires hiragana な inserted) yet you reject Chinese language for a tattoo.

peace out.