So I know you can use katakana to write foreign names, but I’ll be moving to Japan for a few years and would like to stand out a little less. Would it be weird/rude to try to find kanji for the sounds in my name/find a japanese equivalent (like something that sounds similar or similar meaning)
I am Asian for context and have a western name that has sounds in many East Asian languages
3 comments
Yes, it would be weird.
Tl;dr your name will still be obviously foreign and would make you stand out more.
Just putting the sound of your name in kanji would be even stranger than in katakana because it won’t look or sound Japanese.
And if you try to match the mesning, that will also be strange, because it won’t make it a Japanese name.
There’s a reason Japanese people don’t translate out their names into English and just go by Aiko Yamakawa and not Lovechild Mountainriver.
Even many Koreans and Chinese write their name in katakana over kanji even though their names have them, because you can still tell they’re not Japanese names.
Japanese people expect foreigners to have katakana names and are used to them.
There are some Japanese people and organizations that use katakana even for Nikkeijin (people of Japanese ancestry who are from countries like America or Peru). See this post for sooner interesting information. https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/p16507/why_are_the_names_of_diasporic_japanese_written/
yea, sure. do it. why not. here’s a nice name consisting purely out of kanji for u.
陰経吸 上手 (Inkeikyuu Jouzu). It means “Skilled Master”. If you know a bit of Japanese, you might notice that Jouzu means skilled, so I’m not lying. it is a unique name, and you will be respected 100%.
have fun