In 2019, Hajime Akaike, 21, changed his name from ‘Prince’ to ‘Hajime’ (肇) at the age of 18, a name given to him by his parents; when he announced his name change on Twitter, “Permission to change my name has been granted aa！！！！！！！！” (*The account has now been deleted.) When he announced his name change on Twitter, the number of retweets exceeded 100,000 and the reaction was huge.
We spoke to Akaike, now 21, to find out more about how he came to change his name, his parents’ reaction and why he decided to change his name.
Continue reading in (in Japanese, long article): https://bunshun.jp/articles/-/59315?page=1
Source 1 (in Japanese): https://bunshun.jp/articles/-/59315?page=1
Source 2 (Yahoo Japan): https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/9673412b17a5de3224228f8b2ff7a04dcab1acd9
Comments (Yahoo Japan): https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/9673412b17a5de3224228f8b2ff7a04dcab1acd9/comments
https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/zub5kd/the_prejudice_that_sparkling_name_dumb_man_who/