# 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:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**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, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/41 "2024-10-29T15:02:25Z")
It’s apparently not that difficult to have names changed from something embarrassing, but they don’t do it “just cuz” like they will in Taiwan. You have to have a legitimate reason that convinces the family court. The number of strokes probably doesn’t count. There was a big uproar back in the 90s when a family attempted to register their child as 悪魔 _Akuma_ “The Devil”. The city office first accepted the name, then rejected it. The family sued and won the right for the name. Later, the parents got divorced and the mother had the name changed. ---
**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:** [December 21, 2024, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/42 "2024-12-21T02:49:48Z")
> **[Japanese government will check and judge new baby name pronunciations,...](https://soranews24.com/2024/12/21/japanese-government-will-check-and-judge-new-baby-name-pronunciations-presents-guidelines/)** > > Many are assuming this is a backlash against trendy kirakira names, but is that really the case? > starting in the spring, you’ll be required to include pronunciations for your family members, and if city hall thinks the pronunciation you list for your new baby is too weird, they’ll be able to ask you to explain the logic behind it, and if they’re not satisfied, the name can be denied registration. > > That said, it sounds like they’re going to be pretty lenient. **In an advance draft of the new rules sent to municipal offices this week, the Ministry of Justice gave three scenarios for acceptable pronunciations**. > > 1. The pronunciation aligns, at least in part, with one of the established **kunyomi** (indigenous Japanese) or **onyomi** (derived from Chinese) pronunciations for the kanji. **For example, “Kokoa” is an acceptable pronunciation for the name 心愛** , since it’s made with the kanji 心 (which can be pronounced “kokoro” and means “heart”) and 愛 (“ai”/”love”). > > 2. The pronunciation aligns with **an established pronunciation for a sequence of two or more kanji outside their kunyomi/onyomi readings**. For example, **“Asuka” is an acceptable pronunciation for the name 飛鳥** , since it’s already a widely used and understood irregular pronunciation for that specific kanji combination used for both people and place names. > > 3. The pronunciation aligns with an established pronunciation for **okiji**. We’re getting into the literally tiny details of Japanese linguistics here, but okiji pronunciations are, in simple terms, pronouncing a kanji in the same way as a more complex character that the first kanji is a component of. For example, the 心 kanji we saw above is also part of the more complex kanji, 愛. ---
**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:** [December 22, 2024, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/43 "2024-12-22T13:29:08Z")
For those who don’t want to read the link, up until now the pronunication of names wasn’t required to be registed, only the written form, in kanji or kana. That article and the Japanese ones linked as sources didn’t address the question of the court case which allowed parents to name their child Akuma, as I posted earlier. ---
**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:** [December 22, 2024, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/44 "2024-12-22T15:08:33Z")
> [@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. How did the general population determine surnames at that time? Did they pick them out of thin air, like given names tend to be? Western names seem to be based on ocupation (Thatcher, Miller, Smith) or location (West, York, Hambleton) or some characteristic like traditional names or relationshi (Roberts, Johnson). (I still don’t get where Shakespeare or Brown or Silver or Pepys became names. Must be interesting stories) Did Japanese surnames get chosen the same way? > [@TokyoBayer](#): > > There was a big uproar back in the 90s when a family attempted to register their child as 悪魔 _Akuma_ “The Devil”. The city office first accepted the name, then rejected it. The family sued and won the right for the name. Freakonomics in a discussion on given names, relates the story of a girl named Temptress - supposedly they meant to call her Tempest but were unclear on spelling. The author notes “she lived up to her name”. i recall too a dispute mentioned in the news where the French government refuse to register the name Cerise (“Cherry”) although Cherry is a not-uncommon English name. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2024, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/45 "2024-12-22T17:37:33Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > - The pronunciation aligns with an established pronunciation for **okiji**. We’re getting into the literally tiny details of Japanese linguistics here, but okiji pronunciations are, in simple terms, pronouncing a kanji in the same way as a more complex character that the first kanji is a component of. For example, the 心 kanji we saw above is also part of the more complex kanji, 愛. Forgive my ignorance, but, speaking of Japanese spelling, what does that have to do with okiji? I thought okiji were characters not directly read at all, for instance when converting a Chinese text to Japanese. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2024, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/46 "2024-12-22T19:44:31Z")
A good example of the effect of orthography in Japanese names: In _Spirited Away_, the witch Yubaba takes Chihiro’s written name 千尋 and removes the second character, converting Chihiro into 千 Sen. She waves her hand over Chihiro’s signature on a contract and makes the ink of 尋 float off the paper into her hand, whereupon she locks it away. The _kun_ reading of 千 is _chi_, the native Japanese word for a thousand. The _on_ reading of 千 is _sen_, the loanword from Chinese for a thousand. When 千 is written in combination with 尋 _-hiro_, it is read _Chi-_. Without the second kanji, it changes to _Sen._ This is a big plot point because as long as the main character is called Sen, she’s in bondage to the witch. If she can get her full name back and be Chihiro again, she’ll be free. ---
**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:** [December 22, 2024, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/47 "2024-12-22T22:36:13Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > I thought okiji were characters not directly read at all, for instance when converting a Chinese text to Japanese. I agree - I don’t think okiji is the correct terminology here. Okiji is a phenomenon that arises in the context of _kanbun_ (i.e. reading classical Chinese in Japanese). > [@md-2000](#): > > How did the general population determine surnames at that time? Did they pick them out of thin air, like given names tend to be? I don’t know the historical answer to how people chose surnames, but most Japanese surnames have a very transparent and straightforward meaning, combining (usually 2) simple elements like big, small, hill, mountain, valley, forest, island, field, well, village, names of trees, cardinal directions, etc. It really seems that when people were choosing names, they used features of their immediate environment as reference points. You might meet Mr “coast field” or Mrs “high island” or Ms “west mountain”. It is generally much easier to read people’s surnames and know with confidence how they are pronounced than their given names. There are exceptions, of course. But some of the highly irregular pronunciations are probably older surnames that have been knocking around for centuries, like 服部 Hattori. ---
**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:** [December 22, 2024, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/48 "2024-12-22T23:38:28Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > I agree - I don’t think okiji is the correct terminology here. I mean, it _could_ be wrong, but that’s an article on the English side of a Japanese news site based in Tokyo, so you would think they knew what they were talking about. > **[About SoraNews24](https://soranews24.com/about/)** > > ■THE TEAM Yoshito Ueda Casey Baseel Oona McGee Scott Wilson Master Blaster Joan C Amy Chavez Katy Kelly Kay Ruide Koh Jessica Kozuka Evie Lund Shannon McNaught KK Miller Meg Murphy Mike Krista Rogers Dale Roll ... > SoraNews24 is a Tokyo-based news site. In 2008, our sister site, RocketNews24 published its first Japanese-language article, and two years later came the start of our English site, which originally existed exclusively to translate articles from our Japanese colleagues. Over time we’ve expanded the amount of English-language content we produce while maintaining a focus on fun, weird, and intriguing news from Asia, particularly Japan. ---
**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:** [December 23, 2024, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/49 "2024-12-23T02:01:42Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > How did the general population determine surnames at that time? Did they pick them out of thin air, like given names tend to be? According [to here](https://www.sg.emb-japan.go.jp/JCC/E-Magazine-Jun-2021-Names.html): > [@](#): > > Japan is an anomaly in East Asia; where countries like China and South Korea have less than a few thousand family names in circulation, Japan has over 100,000 family names in use! But did you know that the widespread use of modern Japanese family names is something that only developed quite recently in history? > > Prior to the Meiji Restoration, family names in Japan were reserved for the aristocracy, and although affluent commoners could pay to bear a surname, they could only be used in local circles and not on official documents. It was only in 1870 that previous legislations which prevented commoners from taking on family names were removed; in 1873, a new law came into effect, requiring everyone, regardless of socioeconomic status, to have a family name. As such, commoners that previously only went by one given name had to come up with a surname to be registered! They either came up with family names themselves, or approached priests to decide on an auspicious family name that would suit them. > > There are a few ways in which people came up with family names, but some researchers estimate that about 89.5% of modern Japanese family names are derived from place names - these include the proper names of villages, neighbourhoods, old province names, and modern prefectures. An example of such a family name is 山口/Yamaguchi, which is also the name of a prefecture in Western Japan. In addition to proper names, people could also create surnames using physical features of the local landscape. Geographical features like mountains ‘山’ and forests ‘林’, and plants like pine ‘松’ and cedar ‘杉’ could all be combined with one another, or other descriptive characters to produce surnames like 松山/Matsuyama (‘pine mountain’) and 小林/Kobayashi (‘small forest’). The article also discusses a few kanji that derive from occupations, but if about 90% of the names come from locations, then the percentage is small. > [@](#): > > Family names could also be derived from one’s profession. The character 部 ‘guild’ appears in family names like 渡部/Watanabe and 服部/Hattori. Watanabe contains the character for 渡 ‘crossing’, and in the past, the name was used to identify a guild of boatmen that ferried customers across rivers. Similarly, Hattori, which contains the character 服 ‘clothes’, came from weavers. Other occupational names include 犬養/Inukai, which referred to those who kept and raised dogs. One of my students has 犬 _inu_ in their name and I had wondered about it. > [@DPRK](#): > > Forgive my ignorance, but, speaking of Japanese spelling, what does that have to do with okiji? I thought okiji were characters not directly read at all, for instance when converting a Chinese text to Japanese. > [@hibernicus](#): > > I agree - I don’t think okiji is the correct terminology here. Okiji is a phenomenon that arises in the context of _kanbun_ (i.e. reading classical Chinese in Japanese). Reading all about kirakira names for this thread, okiji is the correct terminology. Although the original use was for classical Chinese, it now also has the [meaning for names](https://lab.kuas.ac.jp/~jinbungakkai/pdf/2016/i2016_01.pdf). (pdf) > [@](#): > > Okiji is the term for kanji which are left unpronounced when reading Chinese characters. There are many kirakira names which use okiji. For example, a boy who was named 晴 空,usually read as Seiku, (lit. ‘clear sky’) was introduced on Kongetsu-no akachan, which is a homepage of the Shiina maternity clinic. One might also think this name is read as Haru- sora, or Sei-sora. This name is not read as Seiků. rather, it is used as Sora. Thus the 晴of 晴空 is an okiji, a redundant kanji contributing no pronunciation. There are many website which discuss okiji in Japanese names, including this [interesting one](https://note.com/amuname/n/ne1d73fc64430) (in Japanese). The author gives her name as 結生 _Yui_ and notes that 結 can be pronounces as _Yui_ without 生, which doesn’t add to the pronunication. In fact, it can make it more difficult to read the name. The article goes into the weeds on okiji and how they can contribute to the pronunication or make it more difficult. Of the various sites, I haven’t seen anything outside the Sora News article which describes okiji they way that the article does. Sora News says: > [@](#): > > We’re getting into the literally tiny details of Japanese linguistics here, but okiji pronunciations are, in simple terms, pronouncing a kanji in the same way as a more complex character that the first kanji is a component of. This does not match what other sources are saying. ---
**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:** [December 24, 2024, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/50 "2024-12-24T11:02:24Z")
Some more notes. The Meiji Restoration was a remarkable era in which Japanese society was turned completely upside down and inside out. It’s a fascinating period where they went from a feudal society with rigid classes and samurais to a modern country in a few decades. Most people don’t realize the extent of changes required for this and how many things were affected. As part of that process, the powers that be decided that commoners not only should be allowed to have surnames, it should be required. > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > I mean, it _could_ be wrong, but that’s an article on the English side of a Japanese news site based in Tokyo, so you would think they knew what they were talking about. As you quoted, > [@](#): > > Over time we’ve expanded the amount of English-language content we produce while maintaining a focus on fun, weird, and intriguing news from Asia, particularly Japan. I’ve never taken them to be terribly serious journalists. It may not be _all_ click bait, but most of their articles are deep journalism like [Cup Noodle sells new squid fork with its instant ramen](https://soranews24.com/2024/12/20/cup-noodle-sells-new-squid-fork-with-its-instant-ramen/). The definition they give doesn’t match any of the Japanese sources I’ve found, and the government guidelines echo the usage I’ve cited in the research paper. ---
**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:** [December 24, 2024, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/51 "2024-12-24T22:50:57Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > There are a few ways in which people came up with family names, but some researchers estimate that about 89.5% of modern Japanese family names are derived from place names - these include the proper names of villages, neighbourhoods, old province names, and modern prefectures. An example of such a family name is 山口/Yamaguchi, which is also the name of a prefecture in Western Japan. In addition to proper names, people could also create surnames using physical features of the local landscape. _Note: the above is not a direct quote from TokyoBayer, but from an article they quoted._ I suspect this quoted part of the article is based on a misunderstanding. They seem to be saying that 89.5% of surnames are from pre-existing placenames, and that names based on local features is a separate category (presumably part of the remaining 10.5%). I very much doubt that this is true. Another point is that 服部 Hattori, 渡部 Watanabe, and 犬養 Inukai are not Meiji-era surnames, they’re among the surnames that’s been around for centuries. Incidentally I got to know the name Hattori and its very irregular spelling/pronunciation because I used to sit beside a Mr Hattori in the office. ---
**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:** [December 25, 2024, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114/52 "2024-12-25T01:04:02Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > They seem to be saying that 89.5% of surnames are from pre-existing placenames, and that names based on local features is a separate category (presumably part of the remaining 10.5%). I very much doubt that this is true. I didn’t read it that way at all. I read the sentence to mean that 89.5% of surnames came from places (rather than occupations, etc.). Names from local features are included in that percentage. It wasn’t clear if names concerning rice fields 田 are included in the above category, or separately. The article looks like it’s written from the PR department of an embassy so it’s not authoritative. > [@hibernicus](#): > > Another point is that 服部 Hattori, 渡部 Watanabe, and 犬養 Inukai are not Meiji-era surnames, they’re among the surnames that’s been around for centuries. I also didn’t read this as suggesting that the names were created in the Meiji Era, but rather that commoners took on names at that time, and some would have adopted surnames which were already in existence. I don’t know anything about the process and what was involved. Decades ago, I had read most Japanese adopted surnames in the Meiji Era but I don’t know the details. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-spelling-of-a-name-have-some-significance-in-japanese/1009114.md?page=2)