is japanese names all written in Kanji? (illustration pic)

9 comments

1. Yes. All. 100%.

2. You mean family names?

   Then no, a lot of people have hiragana first names.

   And if by “Japanese” you mean traditional Japanese then yes but if by nationality based then no, there are plenty of people who have changed their nationality.

3. Traditional Japanese surnames are more or less exclusively written in Kanji and Kanji is often used for given names as well, but it’s also not too uncommon for given names to be written in Hiragana (especially for women).

   For example Japanese figure skater, Yuhana Yokoi’s name is written as 横井 ゆは菜,.

4. my first Japanese teacher who was native to Japan, her name was written in hiragana her parents decided

5. Surnames, yes. A rare handful will have a ノ in them as a holdover from a place name, such as 一ノ瀬, but even most of those have the *no* part folded into the pronunciation without the kana (cf. 井上)

   Given names, usually. Some women will have mixed-type given names, kana and kanji, or have given names with no kanji at all.

6. Given names can be kanji, kana, or a mix. Many people still go to a fortune teller for advice about how to name a baby, and that advice would include numerology related to the number of strokes in the name. A fortune teller might recommend trading a kanji for a character with a more lucky line count or spelling a name using kana. Here’s a website all about making good name choices while accounting for various lucky factors: [Nihon Ikuji](https://www.nihon-ikuji.com/)

7. If Ito was “Itto”, changes anything?

8. I remember in one anime there was a situation: a girl’s name was in kanji. After she lost memories her brother advised her to write it in hiragana. That was sign that she changed. So I’ve thought writing name in kana is a sign of some problem. I’m not expert

9. Traditional ones are written in kanji, but if you ask whether all Japanese names are written in kanji or not, the answer is no. Laws on registering names allow hiragana, katakana and kanji. Naturalized citizens may have katakana family names, although most of them create kanji names to go with their original names. A soccer player Alessandro Santos chose 三都市アレサンドロ.