Hello!
My name is Nathan. I’m an American, but my family is from Ukraine. So in Ukrainian, my name is Натан (Natan). “Natan,” by the way, is truer to the original Hebrew.
So for forming my name in katakana, I’m left with the options of which version to base it off of. I could say 「ネイサン」, to base it off my English name, or I could go with 「ナタン」from the Ukrainian.
\[For context, I hope to eventually live and perhaps settle in Japan.\] As far as weighing these options, I have the following couple of considerations.
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How it “feels” to say: For friends I may make, I want my name to be easy to remember and pleasant to say. So my question, to native speakers of Japanese and to advanced learners, is whether 「ナタン」or「ネイサン」feels more comfortable to say. My main worry here is that 「ネイサン」has to much in common with 「お姉さん」phonetically. So I’m very curious about whether any native speakers agree.
I wonder if Japanese are already familiar with the katakana “Nathan” from the Western world. If that’s the case, it makes it easier for them to recall.
But ultimately, I know that there are some Japanese who will speak English, and perhaps some of them will want to speak English to me. This fact makes me feel it would be better to call myself by the name closer to that English.
I don’t know, all thoughts are welcome here. Thank you all!
by narhan_