I’m in the process of writing a piece on a segment of the technology industry. In my interviews I’m dealing with many people in Japan who are first-language Japanese speakers.
And in the course of this they are, based upon my name, continually mistaking me for a woman.
This is not the first time this has happened with Japanese folks from Japan. It’s an ongoing thing that I first noticed with a Japanese pen pal in the mid-1980s.
Note, please, that this does NOT occur with persons of Japanese background who have spent significant time in the US or have grown up here.
So can some fine person with a greater grasp of Japanese clue me in to why my name is apparently female-sounding to those from Japan?
“Nate” is not a well known English name in Japan, whereas “Bob” or “John” would be. I asked a couple of native speakers in the office and the consensus is that people are guessing, but we’re not sure why they would guess a female over a male. People who have lived abroad may have run into a Nate.
The only WAG we can come up with is that Kate is a fairly well known woman’s name, and they may be associating that. Not a great WAG, but if anyone else has a better idea, go for it.
It’s probably because “Nate” ends in an “e” (albeit silent), and many Japanese masculine names end in an “o”.
I suppose you could tweak it to “Nato” but that would set you up for an entirely different sort of misunderstanding…
Nato being the extremely smelly fermented soybeans that some consider a delicacy. There ought to be a law against opening a jar of it inside the house…
Based on what? Your name written down? An English-speaker speaking your name? Or a Japanese-speaker speaking your name, and if so, how are they pronouncing it?
Also have you ruled out selective memory? (I.e. most Japanese know or guess your gender correctly, but you only remember the time when they make a mistaken assumption.)
No, I’d wager strongly that I recall this clearly. It’s not like I have a many-tiered amoung of contacts with persons from Japan and, unless I’m meeting them in person, it’s nearly universal that there’s an assumption that I am female.
You’re correct that this is usually in written communication, however.
