I don’t think this is a translation question, since 1. it is not really a translation, since it is a name and 2. I already kinda know the translation.
But I was surprised that the X’s character 猫依 護刃 is translated to Nekoi Yuzuriha. The surname is fine, 猫 kunyomi is the very familiar neko, while 依 onyomi is i, thus Neko.i I believe.
But how is 護刃 Yuzuriha? My dictionary DOES provide a kunyomi “ha” for 刃, but 護 onyomi is “go” and kunyomi is “mamoru”. The implication, from my limited Japanese, is that “護刃” as a whole is Yuzuriha, not to be broken up, as it is a name.
But I cannot find any other Yuzuriha with this Kanji. Is this a rare name? How would native Japanese know her name as Yuzuriha? Because the pronunciation would be provided?
Sorry if this question doesnt make sense. I am still quite new to Japanese.
11 comments
[Names of people and places may use any kanji with any reading](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/zht6ct/how_to_read_japanese_names/)
EDIT: Look up [Nanori readings](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanori)
japanese names can, in essence, have pretty much any reading for any kanji. even a native japanese person, by just reading the name alone with no context or anything, would not be able to know that 護刃 is read as ゆずりは with certainty
Kanji readings in names are a bit of a mystery. To the point where plenty of kanji have name-specific readings, and then you have kirakira names like 八神月（ライト）- yeah Light Yagami’s name is “Moon” in kanji for some reason.
BTW jisho.org probably has the best database of given names that I’ve found. This one shows up when you search.
Much like there are various spellings of Kaylyn, Keighleen or Kayyylyynn etc in western names, Japanese names also has that phenomenon where people like a particular sound or meaning then bend the rules for the reading of a kanji to fit their idea. They’re called kira-kira name (literally: shiny name)キラキラネーム or DQN name (loony or lacking-common-sense name)ドキュンネーム.
Are you positive it’s 護刃 OP?
譲刃 would make a lot more sense with that reading. 譲る＋刃
If you didn’t misread then maybe the author used the wrong Kanji for the name or they just thought they’d get clever with the Kanji and use護 (protect) with the phonetics of 譲 since they look very similar
it may be that the parents chose that reading, as you can name someone with a name and use another reading
Kanji names are a mess and even Japanese people get stumped on how names are read. You can bend Kanji to make essentially any sound you like, the dictionary police aren’t going to hunt you down for making up reading that doesn’t exist for those kanji.
劇場版では神威と共に草薙・遊人を相手に戦う中で、神威を狙って遊人が放った凶器に身を挺し、腹部に刃を受ける。
His name tells the story of what he does. He receives the blade on behalf of another. As for the kanji, it shows that he protects the person who the blade was intended for. It’s a little convoluted and stylistic to choose two kanji that in Chinese are fundamentally different but look similar enough. Could be a mistake but I think it’s more intentional. There is a plant called ゆずりは 譲葉 which is a homophone. This plants old leaves “yield” to the new ones as it grows. I don’t think it is a stretch to think the character in this story acts as those leaves that give way to the younger ones, maybe in this story but taking a blade that is meant for a younger life??? Not sure but this is the best I can do. BTW, if you are watching the anime, the wikipedia article gives yuzuriha’s back story that I based my thought off of from the play version of the story so it might be slightly different from the anime.
Cause everybody is so creative lately
The name is fictional. Anything goes.
護 resembles 譲 and 譲刃 is also a common way to write the name. 譲 is yuzuru, I am guessing there was some point, either before or shortly after the last major kanji standardization, where 護 was suggested as a simplification of 譲 or visa versa, or enough people made the mistake that it became standard, etc. As other people have pointed out, anything goes and the reason is likely less some logical aspect of Japanese and more likely that that just happens to be the way the language evolved. Take the “official” kanji readings as more of a guideline than as any linguistically meaningful rule