# Does the spelling of a name have some significance in Japanese? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 23, 2024, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114 "2024-10-23T19:36:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![veryfrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2024, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/21 "2024-10-25T15:51:27Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > (Side note - are there names the equivalent of “Bill Smith” or “Bob Jones” that are so common as to be almost cliche? Or is it more along the lines of excessive creativity like “Cyndee” or “Aliesha”?) My Japanese prof used to refer to “keeping up with the Tanakas” as Tanaka is supposedly as common a family name over there as Smith or Jones is in the States. ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2024, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/22 "2024-10-25T16:02:45Z")
I went to school with a pair of sisters named Autumn and Summer (80s). ---
**Author:** ![icon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c6cbf5/32.png) [@icon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/icon)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2024, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/23 "2024-10-25T16:28:09Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > There definiately are [unusual names](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kira_kira_name). Oh yes, I agree. But not quite in the same way that you have in English where people choose a different variant just to be different. One of my friends gave his son a name in katakana with no Kanji which surprised me. His other sons have more common Japanese names. > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > On a somewhat related note it is common for manga to include tiny kana pronunciation guides for names (and some other words), at least the first time they appear. (I presume that is common in other print media aimed at children/teens but less common in material for adults.) That type of writing is commonly know as Furigana ([Furigana - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furigana)) and as you note is common for all types of works for young readers, both in Manga and picture books. It is also common in language learning materials. A number of Japanese learning apps I have seen have that as an option when learning vocabulary. `//i\\` ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2024, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/24 "2024-10-25T17:44:03Z")
Thank you all for your replies. This thread has been very educational. > [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > When two Japanese characters meet each other in manga, it isn’t unusual for them to have a conversation about their names’ kanji. Manga is read right to left: This is what I was getting at. Murakami typically describes conversations between two characters about which kanji are used in a name. It strikes me as an American as odd (just like it would seem odd if an English novel had two characters talk about how one of them spells Cindy / Cindi / Sindee / etc., unless there was some specific plot point about the spelling), but it makes sense now with all the replies you all have posted. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2024, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/25 "2024-10-25T18:38:38Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > just like it would seem odd if an English novel had two characters talk about how one of them spells Cindy / Cindi / Sindee / etc., unless there was some specific plot point about the spelling From _Anne of Green Gables_: “Unromantic fiddlesticks!” said the unsympathetic Marilla. “Anne is a real good plain sensible name. You’ve no need to be ashamed of it.” “Oh, I’m not ashamed of it,” explained Anne, “only I like Cordelia better. I’ve always imagined that my name was Cordelia—at least, I always have of late years. When I was young I used to imagine it was Geraldine, but I like Cordelia better now. But if you call me Anne please call me Anne spelled with an E.” “What difference does it make how it’s spelled?” asked Marilla with another rusty smile as she picked up the teapot. “Oh, it makes _such_ a difference. It _looks_ so much nicer. When you hear a name pronounced can’t you always see it in your mind, just as if it was printed out? I can; and A-n-n looks dreadful, but A-n-n-e looks so much more distinguished. If you’ll only call me Anne spelled with an E I shall try to reconcile myself to not being called Cordelia.” ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2024, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/26 "2024-10-25T21:25:43Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > Side note - are there names the equivalent of “Bill Smith” or “Bob Jones” that are so common as to be almost cliche? One of my favorite Japanese movies is _Naisu no Mori_ (titled–unfortunately–_Funky Forest_ in English) which consists of a number of dreams. Similar in concept to the Kurosawa movie _Yume_/_Dreams_ except batshit insane. In one scene a guy is attempting to shame a creature. At one point (around 5 and a half minutes into this clip) he mocks it for gaving the very ordinary name “Yamada”. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/V0OytmZtvzU/hqdefault.jpg "Funky forest: The first contact - Scene") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0OytmZtvzU) ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2024, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/27 "2024-10-26T01:33:19Z")
> [@icon](#): > > Oh yes, I agree. But not quite in the same way that you have in English where people choose a different variant just to be different. One of my friends gave his son a name in katakana with no Kanji which surprised me. His other sons have more common Japanese names. Names arer different here in Japan so it’s not the same was as in English, but people give kirikira names to their kids, as I posted a link above. Having names in either hiragana or katakana is actually quite common these days. > [@veryfrank](#): > > I minored in Japanese a zillion years ago in uni, so this may be misremembered, but it’s my understanding that when Japanese businessmen exchange cards, it’s polite to study the other guy’s intently and ask all the questions you want about proper pronunciation if the name is uncommon or the _kanji_ are difficult. It’s an icebreaker that adheres nicely to regimented rules of decorum. Yeah, that’s part of the process. > [@veryfrank](#): > > My Japanese prof used to refer to “keeping up with the Tanakas” as Tanaka is supposedly as common a family name over there as Smith or Jones is in the States. There are a few really common names, including Tanaka 田中, Suzuki 鈴木 and Yamada 山田. You often see name such as Yamada Taro 山田太郎 or Suzuki 鈴木花子 used as examples of filling out paperwork like John or Jane Doe. Hanako used to be more popular but not so much these days. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2024, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/28 "2024-10-26T12:22:57Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > There are a few really common names, including Tanaka 田中, Suzuki 鈴木 and Yamada 山田. > > You often see name such as Yamada Taro 山田太郎 or Suzuki 鈴木花子 used as examples of filling out paperwork like John or Jane Doe. Hanako used to be more popular but not so much these days. I assume you are talking about given names. Do Japanese today have family names like westerners, and do they come after the given name? ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2024, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/29 "2024-10-26T13:20:37Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > I assume you are talking about given names. Do Japanese today have family names like westerners, and do they come after the given name? Sorry, I wasn’t clear. This part of my post is referring to family names: > [@TokyoBayer](#): > > There are a few really common names, including Tanaka 田中, Suzuki 鈴木 and Yamada 山田. And this refers to both family names and given names. > [@TokyoBayer](#): > > You often see name such as Yamada Taro 山田太郎 or Suzuki [Hanako] 鈴木花子 used as examples of filling out paperwork like John or Jane Doe. Added “Hanako” in the correct place in the example. The family name comes first and the given name follows. For the first case, Yamada Taro 山田太郎, Yamada is the family name and Taro (a typical male name) is the given name. For Suzuki Hanako 鈴木花子, Suzuki is the family name and Hanako (previously a very typical female name but dated now) is the given name. After Japan opened up to the West, Japanese typically reversed the order of their names when referring to them in Western languages. People write them in the normal order (family name followed by given name) in Japanese and then reverse this when writing the _romaji_, to transliterate names. Refer to the wiki article on the famed Japanese WWII admiral Yamamoto: > [@](#): > > **Isoroku Yamamoto** (山本 五十六, _Yamamoto Isoroku_, April 4, 1884 – April 18, 1943) was a [Marshal Admiral](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gensui_(Imperial_Japanese_Navy)) of the [Imperial Japanese Navy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Japanese_Navy) (IJN) and the [commander-in-chief](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commander-in-chief) of the [Combined Fleet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Fleet) during [World War II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II). The order given in English has been reversed to the Japanese order, which is seen with the kanji and then the following romaji. In contrast, Chinese names for people from China, Taiwan, etc. retain their original order even when romanized. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2024, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/30 "2024-10-26T20:17:23Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > **Isoroku Yamamoto** (山本 五十六, _Yamamoto Isoroku_ I always think of the Pharoh [Narmer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narmer) as “Catfish Chisel” because of his ideograms. Now I’m probably stuck thinking of Yamamoto as “Mountain Book Fifty-six”. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2024, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/31 "2024-10-26T20:47:10Z")
Just to add that this is all broadly the same in Chinese, given the shared origins of their written form, and that, like Japanese, Chinese has few unique spoken sounds (though I can’t vouch for all dialects\*). So, if you’re introducing yourself to someone in China, and say your name is _gaosi_, you would typically then say “Gao as in _Gaoji_, si as in _sixiang_”, say, so that they know the characters are 高思, and not, say, 糕斯, which would be pronounced exactly the same. > **\* (background about Chinese for those interested)** > > A number of different “dialects” are spoken in China: Mandarin, Cantonese, Min, Wu etc. Their spoken forms can be as different as English is to, say, German. But they are only called _dialects_, and not languages, because the written form is the same. > > FYI Mandarin is the _spoken_ lingua franca across most of China, and the written form _already is_ a lingua franca. > > Japanese is _almost_ another dialect in this sense, because Japanese Kanji overlaps considerably with Chinese Hanzi, so, for example. I am able to read a lot of Japanese writing despite not speaking a word of Japanese. Almost but not quite a dialect, because some 30% of Kanji characters have diverged from the Chinese, and Chinese has no equivalent to the phonetic Japanese scripts (no equivalent apart from the Romanized text, that is). ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2024, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/32 "2024-10-27T08:06:26Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Just to add that this is all broadly the same in Chinese, given the shared origins of their written form, and that, like Japanese, Chinese has few unique spoken sounds (though I can’t vouch for all dialects\*). For Japanese kanji, there are the “native readings” (kun-yomi) and the reading based on the original Chinese at the time the kanji were borrowed (on-yomi), although some changes have occurred. The native readings are the native Japanese words for the particular kanji. For example, for the kanji 林, _woods_, the native reading is _hayashi_ and the on-yomi is _rin_. Family names tend to have native readings, and there are fewer homonyms with family names. Responding to the question concerning Chinese. > **Summary** > > > [@Mijin](#): > > > > Japanese is _almost_ another dialect in this sense, because Japanese Kanji overlaps considerably with Chinese Hanzi, so, for example. I am able to read a lot of Japanese writing despite not speaking a word of Japanese. > > I know you put the qualifier as "_almost_ but no, that stretches the definition of dialect too far. They come from two completely separate language families and the grammar of the two is completely different. > > I read Japanese so I can understand a certain amount of Chinese, but speakers of either languages can’t simply pick up a novel and get enough of a meaning to say that Japanese is even remotely considered a dialect of Chinese. > > Certainly, I’m able to get around in Taiwan, read menus, take trains, etc., just using Japanese, but this does not mean that Japanese is _almost_ a dialect of Chinese. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2024, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/33 "2024-10-27T08:37:39Z")
> **Continuing the Chinese-Japanese convo:** > > I once spent a couple days knocking around Tokyo with an American friend who reads some Chinese. He was able to read signs well enough to say, “hey, want to try that noodle shop?” And also read menus pretty accurately. But he couldn’t speak any Japanese at all. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2024, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/34 "2024-10-27T10:04:34Z")
> **More** > > Menus and shop names are among the easiest things read. Novels, not so much. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2024, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/35 "2024-10-27T15:35:15Z")
Tanaka is the 4th most common family name, so the same tier as “Brown” in both the US and UK by ranking (approx. 1% of the population, though Brown is about 0.5%). The “Smith” of Japan is Satō. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2024, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/36 "2024-10-28T05:15:24Z")
It’s interesting because although the most common last name is Satō, the typical names used as John or Jane Doe tend to be the ones I mentioned above, Tanaka, Suzuki and Yamada, although sometimes governments will use the name of the prefecture or ward (city) in Tokyo, for example. I’m not sure why Satoh is getting dissed. [List of names](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_Japanese_surnames): > [@](#): > > | 1 | 佐藤 | Satō | 1,990,000 | 1.57 | > | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | > | 2 | 鈴木 | Suzuki | 1,900,000 | 1.50 | > | 3 | 高橋 | Takahashi | 1,470,000 | 1.16 | > | 4 | 田中 | Tanaka | 1,340,000 | 1.06 | > | 5 | 渡辺 | Watanabe | 1,200,000 | 0.95 | > | 6 | 伊藤 | Itō | 1,150,000 | 0.91 | > | 7 | 中村 | Nakamura | 1,080,000 | 0.85 | > | 8 | 小林 | Kobayashi | 1,060,000 | 0.84 | > | 9 | 山本 | Yamamoto | 1,020,000 | 0.81 | > | 10 | 加藤 | Katō | 920,000 | 0.73 | > | 11 | 吉田 | Yoshida | 850,000 | — | > | 12 | 山田 | Yamada | 820,000 | — | > | 13 | 佐々木 | Sasaki | 710,000 | — | > | 14 | 山口 | Yamaguchi | 640,000 | — | > | 15 | 松本 | Matsumoto | 630,000 | — | > | 16 | 井上 | Inoue | 600,000 | — | > | 17 | 木村 | Kimura | 580,000 | — | > | 18 | 清水 | Shimizu | 560,000 | — | > | 19 | 林 | Hayashi | 550,000 | — | > | 20 | 斉藤 | Saitō | 530,000 | — | ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2024, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/37 "2024-10-28T21:44:10Z")
Japan has a very large number of surnames (10s of thousands) compared to other cultures. Possibly more than any other culture. The reason is that surnames were introduced, for the general population, only very recently, in the late 19th century. Some time ago I saw a YouTube video about how the number of surnames in a culture decreases over time, in the limit approaching 3 surnames for the whole population after many centuries. Something like this has happened in Korea, which has a much older surname culture than Japan and consequently much fewer surnames, with most Koreans having one of 3 surnames. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/38 "2024-10-29T07:28:56Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > Taro (a typical male name) Isn’t there a naming tradition that basically translates to “X Son” in one reading but also has a different metaphorical meaning? Ichiro, Taro, Jiro etc. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/39 "2024-10-29T09:25:03Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > Japan has a very large number of surnames (10s of thousands) compared to other cultures. Possibly more than any other culture. The reason is that surnames were introduced, for the general population, only very recently, in the late 19th century. According to the Wiki article I linked to above, it looks like there are more total numbers, although I’m not sure exactly how many of these are considered “common.” > [@](#): > > Officially, among [Japanese names](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_name) there are 291,129 different Japanese surnames (姓, _sei_),[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_Japanese_surnames#cite_note-japan1-1) as determined by their [kanji](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji), although many of these are [pronounced](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_orthography) and [romanized](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Japanese) similarly. Conversely, some surnames written the same in kanji may also be pronounced differently.[[2]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_Japanese_surnames#cite_note-2) The top 10 surnames cover approximately 10% of the population, while the top 100 surnames cover slightly more than 33%.[[3]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_Japanese_surnames#cite_note-japan2-3) Although there are a larget number of surnames, they are mostly combinations of a subset of characters used in surnames. In this list of the 100 most common names, 95 of the names have two characters, two names of three characters and three have only one character. However, out of the 199 characters used, ChatAT counts only 81 unique characters. Most of the character have a single kun-yomi (native reading) when used for surnames. For example, 林 has the (native reading) of _hayashi_, and the on-yomi of _rin_ is not used on surnames. Some of the character change pronunication according to fixed phonetic rules or convention. 小林 is _kobayashi_ where h changes to b. There are a few names that can have a couple of common pronunications for the same set of characters such as 渡部 that can be read as either Watabe or Watanabe. Another character 辺 is more commonly used for Watanabe, 渡辺. This is quite rare. Some characters such as 小 _small_, can either be read as _o_ or _ko_ such as in 小川 _Ogawa_ or 小林 _Kobayashi_. Surnames are much easier to read and they are much less complicated than given names. > [@hibernicus](#): > > Some time ago I saw a YouTube video about how the number of surnames in a culture decreases over time, in the limit approaching 3 surnames for the whole population after many centuries. Something like this has happened in Korea, which has a much older surname culture than Japan and consequently much fewer surnames, with most Koreans having one of 3 surnames. This is interesting. I did some research online. Wiki says about the three surnames account for [half of Koreans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_name). > [@](#): > > Fewer than 300 (approximately 280)[[11]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_name#cite_note-HanCinema-11) Korean surnames were in use in 2000, and the three most common ([Kim](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_(Korean_surname)), [Lee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_(Korean_surname)), and [Park](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_(Korean_surname))) account for nearly half of the population. Looking at [Chinese names](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_Chinese_surnames): > [@](#): > > Even today, the number of surnames in China is a little over 4,000,[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_Chinese_surnames#cite_note-Xinhua-1) while the year [2000 United States census](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_census) found there are more than 6.2 million surnames altogether[[2]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_Chinese_surnames#cite_note-Word-2) and that the number of surnames held by 100 or more Americans (per name) was just over 150,000. Back to Japanese names, as the vast majority of Japanese women take their husband’s names when they get married, the vast majority of children have the father’s family name and fewer and fewer children are being born, this number will certainly descrease as time goes along. > [@MrDibble](#): > > Isn’t there a naming tradition that basically translates to “X Son” in one reading but also has a different metaphorical meaning? > Ichiro, Taro, Jiro etc. Yes. This is right. Japanese care much more about the birth order, and people often discuss their children using “First son”, “Second son”, “First Daughter” and “Second daughter” although I get the sense that this is fading somewhat. As the number of children is currently something like 1.26, people when to say “my child”, “the older sister” or “younger brother” , etc. There are some names associated with the oldest brother, including 一 _ichi_ or _kazu_ number one such as 一郎 _Ichiro_ and 太郎 _Taro_. Similarly, some names are associated with second sons such as 次郎 _Jiro_ (next son) or 二朗 _Jiro_. I had a girlfriend who was one of eight girls in her family. Her name was Motoko (another girl) and she had a sister Tsugiko (Next girl). This tradition seems to be not as common as previously. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2024, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/40 "2024-10-29T14:28:34Z")
Right, so, how many people/how difficult is it to change one’s name officially on the grounds of it being lame, embarrassing, having an inauspicious stroke count, or any other reason for not wanting to have it written down all the time? [And, incidentally, how easy is it to get rare and/or genuinely original kanji approved?] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114.md?page=3)