…Well, it’s pretty much there in the title. Is there a male/“masculine” equivalent to the Japanese given name “Haruka”?
As far as I know, Haruka is one of those names that can be either male or female. Haruka Takachiho comes to mind, he wrote the Dirty Pair novels that eventually got turned into anime.
If that ain’t masculine enough, try Haruo or Haruhiko.
Haruki, Haruo, Haruya, Harusuke (at a pinch!)
I’m guessing that as long as there’s an appropriate combination of kanji to match the pronunciation, “haruka” can be either male or female. Combination examples can be found here.
Haruka Takachiho ‚ç•ä—y the author uses the one meaning “distant, faraway,” a great name for a sf writer.
How about Japanese author Haruki Murakami?
-Ben
It is hard to say that a Japanese given name is “masculine” or “feminine” in some cases without looking at the kanji characters with which it is written. There are some characters which are almost exclusively for males (such as the suffixes -suke, -da, -ta, -o or -ya) and for females, ( -ko, -ka, -na).
The same sounding name can have a huge variety of characters, resulting in completely different meanings and assignation to the different genders.
For example, the “Haru” in the name we are discussing might mean Spring, Sunshine, or Healing /control/ making safe. (I’m sorry my computer doesn’t do characters)
Which reminds me, you could also stick the Haru at the back of the name, as in Sadaharu, Yoshiharu, Masaharu ) for men and Haru standing alone for a woman, along with Chiharu.