Draft bill proposal seeks to curtail unconventional ‘kirakira’ kanji name readings

Specifically, the proposal seeks to impose restrictions on phonetic readings of name kanji that are:

* potentially offensive, discriminatory, obscene, not suitable for nomenclature, or generally unpleasant (e.g., 悪魔 / Akuma / “devil”)

* character names that would cause unease when given to real people (e.g., 光宙 / Pikachu / “Pikachu”)

* contradictory to the meaning of the kanji (e.g., 高 / Hikushi / the kanji’s meaning is “high” but the reading indicates “low”)

* readable as another common name (e.g., 鈴木 / Sato / the kanji are usually read as “Suzuki”)

* completely irrelevant to the kanji (e.g., 太郎 / Maikeru / the kanji are usually read as “Taro” but the reading indicates “Michael”)

* easily misread or not clear (e.g., 太郎 / Jiro / the kanji are usually read as “Taro” but the reading indicates “Jiro”)

https://japantoday.com/category/national/draft-bill-proposal-seeks-to-curtail-unconventional-%27kirakira%27-kanji-name-readings