Japanese names

f4senkyo69 · 10 Feb 2005

I've noticed this about Japanese names :

1. Different characters may have the same pronounciations

Nagisa:
渚
渚沙

2. A character may have many different pronounciations

Kikawa
Yokawa
Yoshikawa:
吉川

This is what enamdict reflects when I do name lookups.
In a situation like this, suppose you see a set of characters for the first time. Even with the variation mentioned above, is there any way to get the pronounciation right just like that?

bentenmusume · 10 Feb 2005

If you're familiar with many common (and less common) Japanese names, you'll be able to figure out a bunch of them just from experience.

Is there any way to guarantee that you'll know how to read (by the way, you should use the term 'read' (or reading, as a noun) not 'pronounce'(/pronunciation) in these cases) every name you come across, no matter how obscure? No, not really.

Elizabeth · 10 Feb 2005

If you need to know how to spell a Japanese person's unusual name, oftentimes you will have heard the name first allowing you to limit your question to that part you aren't able to guess based on experience. And of course the opposite as well....after seeing the characters, you can probably sound out familiar portions.

たいてい漢字を聞く前に名前は知っていますから分らない部分だけを聞きます。
漢字を聞く前に名前を聞いているはずだと思います。

kevinsano · 14 Feb 2005

I don't know any way of getting a name the first time. With some experience, you can guess the most probable variation, but there's no way to know for sure...
My name could be either Sano or Sanou.(if you'd just read it's kanji) But at least I know for sure it should be Sanou.(佐能=さの or さのう)

Elizabeth · 14 Feb 2005

kevinsano said:
I don't know any way of getting a name the first time. With some experience, you can guess the most probable variation, but there's no way to know for sure...
My name could be either Sano or Sanou.(if you'd just read it's kanji) But at least I know for sure it should be Sanou.(佐能=さの or さのう)

Although in this case the "no" reading for 能 looks like it may be archaic anyway....regardless of whether yours is actually valid as a Japanese name ?

kevinsano · 15 Feb 2005

Archaic or not, I don't think the age of a name is important for knowing it's reading. All I know is that it should be さのう, regardless of how it's written in Romaji.

Elizabeth · 15 Feb 2005

All I know is that it should be さのう, regardless of how it's written in Romaji.

そうですね。多分、今の日本ではこの「の」は通じませんと思います。 And I would assume as well that Japanese family names change as the pronunciation of their characters are altered over the centuries, so obviously age is a factor in that sense.

Glenn · 15 Feb 2005

kevinsano said:
Archaic or not, I don't think the age of a name is important for knowing it's reading. All I know is that it should be さのう, regardless of how it's written in Romaji.

If you know that then why did you type this:

kevinsano said:
But at least I know for sure it should be Sanou.(佐能=さの or さのう)

Did you forget that the IME was on Japanese input or something?

epigene · 15 Feb 2005

As it is in the English-speaking world, the family name is pronounced as the bearer of the name claims it to be. Some families may choose to modify their names that appear to sound old-fashioned (from their perspective); others do not. So, Kevin's name is pronounced "Sanou" if he says so. The probability is high that there are Sanou families and Sano families using the same kanji.

My mother's maiden name was also unique, and she always had a hard time explaining to people how it is read. There are also variations in reading the family name.

That's why you have to add "furigana" (hiragana or katakana reading) to your name when you fill out forms in Japan.

Here is a website featuring a collection of unique and strange family names in Japanese. (I found my mother's maiden name there, too.)
http://homepage3.nifty.com/giboshi/index.htm
ヒマ行く駒

RinoaRita · 15 Feb 2005

yeah, the pronounciation of japanese surnames can vary and even native japanese speakers can't tell for sure...

my name is
熊谷
which is kuma+tani
but pronounced kumagai... of course it's also pronounced kumagaya too... no way to tell for sure unless you ask.

kevinsano · 16 Feb 2005

I wrote that to make clear that both versions of Sano exist in Japan.

Glenn · 16 Feb 2005

Oh, alright. Your name is さのう though, right? Just want to be clear; I got a little confused during this thread.

Elizabeth · 16 Feb 2005

Glenn said:
Oh, alright. Your name is さのう though, right? Just want to be clear; I got a little confused during this thread.

It's the same in every major language with unusual names -- there are going to be differing pronunciations along with initial confusion or embarrassment. The one thing I did learn, though, was that Sano(u) is one example of a Japanese one.

GaijinPunch · 16 Feb 2005

Very poorly laid out, but a good reference if you're not against manually searching in a few lists:

¡ÖÆüËÜ¿Í¤ÎÌ¾Á°¡×ÌÜ¼¡

kevinsano · 17 Feb 2005

Yes, sorry for being so unclear, my name is さのう in hiragana.

Elizabeth · 17 Feb 2005

kevinsano said:
Yes, sorry for being so unclear, my name is さのう in hiragana.

さのうさんという家名は本当なら珍しいですね。とにかく、初耳ですね。日本人の名前としてはずいぶん変った名前だろうかしら？

kevinsano · 19 Feb 2005

Are you sure it's that rare?

epigene · 19 Feb 2005

kevinsano said:
Are you sure it's that rare?

Yes, it's rare. The common name is Sano, and the most common kanji for it is 佐野.

I was also curious about your name and found just one person (a cooking specialist) with the same name on the Web. As for my mother's maiden name, there is no one famous with the same name, except for an actor who appeared in films in the 1950's.

This is none of my business, but I would use "kevinsanou" rather than "kevinsano" if I were you and proud of the family name, to prevent confusion with the common "Sano" name.

epigene · 19 Feb 2005

GaijinPunch said:
Very poorly laid out, but a good reference if you're not against manually searching in a few lists

Hey, GaijinPunch-san! I checked but they are for "first names"! Do you have anything for "family names"?

Hiroyuki Nagashima · 19 Feb 2005

kevinsano said:
Are you sure it's that rare?

Only 107 households of family names of "佐能" are family names, that is, to be very rare.
?S???̕c???i?????j?P?P????

My family name is "永島(Nagashima)".
There are 5832 families of family names of "Nagashima".

epigene · 19 Feb 2005

Thank you, Nagashima-san!

Sorry I wrote you name as 長島.
I always associate your name with Nagashima Shigeo, the Japanese baseball great.

Search on my mother's maiden name showed 1066 families, but with 6 different readings for the name, there are probably less than 200?

My married name ranked very high with more than 90,000.

Hiroyuki Nagashima · 19 Feb 2005

epigene said:
Thank you, Nagashima-san!

Sorry I wrote you name as 長島.
I always associate your name with Nagashima Shigeo, the Japanese baseball great.

It is so.
Most people write "Nagashima" as "長島"
"永島" of all over Japan has hostility toward "長島".

A family coat of arms is "marunikenkatabami".

epigene · 20 Feb 2005

チョーさんもよかったけど、永島さんもねー！

うちは「さがり藤」です。

kevinsano · 20 Feb 2005

The name has been wrongfully romanized in the past. So it says Sano on all official papers. It's kinda cool, having a name that almost nobody else has.
とっても凄いです!! ありがとう永島さん!!

Malaika · 24 Feb 2005

The only japanese name I had was in 7th grade and I picked the name "umeko" so that name stuck.

LOL!

*shrugs*

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