Hello everyone
I was wondering how people name their kids in Japan. I heard there was something called a 人名用漢字 but I’m unsure if you *have* to use that or if you have to consider other things when naming someone in Japanese.
What’s the process for naming someone? Do you have to first come up with a name, see if you wanna use Kanji and then see the Kanji’s meanings? And which Kanji can you use? Are some of them off-limits?
7 comments
You’d have a name and then find the kanji which fit. Some superstitious people might prefer one particular kanji over another because of the number of strokes being auspicious.
not entirely different than picking a name in any language. the parents probably have a favorite name that they want. few will invent an entirely unique name.
i believe there is a name registry of sorts where kanji based names have finite spellings and you can’t just pick anything. names that are outside those available proper names have to be spelled in kana.
you can’t just pick any characters you want and give them any pronunciation you want, if that’s what you’re asking.
I have a registered alias with kanji that I got after marrying my wife so I could have the same name as her. Me, her and my parents came up with a few options that made sense for my name, then we put the ones we liked into online calculators to see which ones are lucky numbers of strokes, then picked our favorite of those.
Recently my wife and I decided to have kids and the process was exactly the same when we started to think about what we would call them. First the names we liked, then kanji to fit those names, then into several calculators, then selection. We don’t have kids yet but we’ve got names ready to go.
There are books that can help you but there are a number of things that can go into creating a name. I had to go through it when naming my kid.
People may consider:
Sound (they like a name and want to find kanji)
Kanji (maybe there is a meaningful kanji that they want to include)
Kanji meaning
Number of strokes (it’s good luck for the stroke number to add up to certain numbers)
Components/radicals (the components have meanings, for example elements. If the family name has certain elements they might want to balance it with the given name)
There are probably more potential factors that I’m missing.
Other people have given good answers, but I’ll just add that you don’t *have* to give your kids a name with kanji. I know a good number of people whose given names are just in hiragana. This is more common with women. I even know a couple of Japanese people whose names are in katakana. The names aren’t of foreign origin, I guess their parents just decided that katakana looked cooler
I know someone named 京矢 (Kyoya) because his parents really liked the kanji 京 and wanted to use it in the name. The stroke count aspect isn’t always heeded, either; people can ignore it if they don’t care for it.
Everyone has given really good answers. You can start with either a name you like and look up possible kanji readings, or you can start with a kanji and see what names exist that have that kanji in it.
Either way I’d recommend consulting some sort of name database so you don’t end up in some awkward position with a cartoony or fantasy name. Think like Naruto (swirl fish cake) which is a real word but a silly name outside of a fantasy context…. unless of course you’re not naming a real person in which case it’s whatever. And if you are, I’m glad you’re going this route instead of trying to give a character a heavy-handed name that’s just a description of their personality.
(I say like I haven’t renamed Link, 任せる in every zelda game since I was 12)
This about that though. I wanted to name my daughter Hatsuharu, but couldn’t find any evidence of it being a real name at the time so went searching for Haru names and liked the sound of “Haruka”. From there I looked for established kanji combinations for the name Haruka and settled on 春日. 😅 as luck would have it it’s not a common reading… nothing quite like being told “I’ve never seen 春日 read as Haruka” and then going into a mini panic, and coupling that with then not being able to find a source that says 春日 CAN be read as Haruka (it can).
In any case, yeah, again. Cross reference with a name database and you’re probably fine. It’s a common enough need that baby name websites exist in Japanese too. 😂