Let’s learn to write a famous person’s Kanji Name: Shohei Ohtani!

Level: beginner, but we have to write in kana.

Shohei Ohtani 大谷翔平 おおたにしょうへい

Background: Remember that Japanese names written in Japanese usually follow Family Name-Personal Name order, though there are exceptions All Completely Foreign names are written in Western order, usually. For example Dave Spector is just デーブ・スペクター, while Eiji Wentz is ウエンツ瑛士, where the Japanese order is retained because of the native Japanese name.

So, Shohei Ohtani is said Ohtani Shohei in Japanese. Note about the romanization here: the convention of representing the double O with Oh for 大 is pretty established. But the other long O sound (Sho in Shohei) is not represented when writing the Romaji for common names. Other things to note Yoko Ono is not romanized with the Oh because her name is 小野 おの, the the Single O (小 )in that name is different than the Oh -double おお-大 from Ohtani.

Names very often use native Japanese readings, especially in family names, even though they look like they might use Chinese readings. The reading of personal names is highly variable; they have essentially no rules, and can be read in completely arbitrary ways.

Luckily Shohei Ohtani has pretty regular readings, and learning to read his name is productive for other names!

Let’s break down the Kanji:

大きい (おおきい）means big, and in names the きい is dropped. It is a person with their arms spread wide, saying “OO”!! (if you like memorizing in pairs, you can remember the 小 from Ono as a person with their arms drawn in saying “o”

谷 (たに）Tani means Valley, and it is also a fairly pictorial derived Kanji. It might help to start with the 口 (mouth) at the bottom and then see the sloping mountains that lead to the mouth of the stream. It might also help to know that Tani is slang for cleavage to make your own mnemonic. I got nothing for a reading mnemonic, except to say this is so common in names that it is hard to forget. Taniguchi is an easy name to learn to read also 谷口 where the Mouth/Kuchi Kanji is added to Tani, and because of common Ku to Gu shifts due to Rendaku*, it is pronounced Guchi.

翔 (しょう）（羊+羽）This is a largely name only Kanji, that still retains the meaning of flight/soaring. See the 羊 (sheep) and the 羽 feathers in the complete Kanji. In general in compound kanji, there are a number of Kanji that are phono-semantic; that is they have a sound part (phono) and then a meaning part (semantic). The so-called radical is usually the meaning carrier (in this case Feathers), and the sound part (in this case the Sheep character). But for the nmemonic, use the Sheep with Feathers, and think of both as being pictorial. I will *SHOW* you and *soaring* *sheep* with *feathers*

平 (へい）Balanced or, flat. Pictorial. See the balance beam scale, and say HEY it balances!

Big Valley Balanced Soaring! 大谷翔平〜！

Useful links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendaku Rendaku has no hard and fast rules but KU-GU, KA-GA KI-GI are common, as are TA-DA, TO-DO. Once you are comfortable with kana you will see that it is common to see this change as just adding ” to the leading character of the second part of the pair. Romanization makes this more difficult to see clearly. See the characters in the 五十音 GO-JU-ON table as soon as you can, so that you can learn the spot Rendaku changes, and also remember the surprising ones that do not change. The ones that don’t follow the rules of Rendaku are the ones to notice and remember.

In Japanese names a big one to remember is that Shima (island, written in several different Kanji) is really commonly Rendaku’d to Jima. So Kawa*jima* is the usual, but there are some people’s names that do not change and remain Kawa*shima*.