46 votes
Accepted

How can I tell if a Japanese person's given name is male or female?

There are a number of common suffixes you can use to try to guess. Here is an incomplete list of common suffixes which are a pretty safe bet: Female ko 子 mi 美 ka 花・華 e 江・恵 na 奈・菜 no 乃 ri 里 Male rō ...
Earthliŋ's user avatar
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19 votes

How do attendance checklists in Japan deal with multiple possible name readings?

It's like this: Teacher: 「野田{のだ} 努{つとむ}さん。」 野田: 「はい。」 T: 「いわい 隆{たかし}さんですかね?しゅくさんですか?」(the surname reads 祝) 祝: 「はふりです。」 T: 「はふりって読むんですか。珍しい名前ですね。はふり たかしさん。」 祝: 「はい。」 This conversation has ...
user19858's user avatar
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19 votes

孫悟飯 - Songohan, why non-Japanese say it comes from "gohan = meal/cooked rice"?

It's a pun. In fact, many, many of Dragonball's characters are puns on food (or food-related) items: サイヤ人 Saiyajin from [ヤサイ]{野菜}人 "vegetable people" ベジータ Vegeta from ベジタブル "vegetable" ウーロン Oolong ...
Earthliŋ's user avatar
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19 votes
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Can "Yutaka Umeda" (name of a Japanese mayor) be read as "Jo Baiden"?

According to the town's official website, the mayor of Yamato-cho, Kumamoto is indeed named Yutaka Umeda. https://www.town.kumamoto-yamato.lg.jp/kiji0035130/index.html The kanji for his name is 梅田 (...
Leebo's user avatar
  • 3,093
16 votes

Can I use my Chinese name as my Japanese name?

Just from personal experience (purely anecdotal), I came across a few Chinese people who all used their original characters hanzi pretty regularly in work scenarios, normally without furigana (name ...
BJCUAI's user avatar
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15 votes
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Is it always necessary to ask how someone's name is pronounced if you encounter it first in writing?

Part A 常用漢字{じょうようかんじ} (Jōyō Kanji) and 人名用漢字{じんめいようかんじ} (Jinmeiyō Kanji) are two separate and non-overlapping lists, but Kanji used in a person's name can be from either list. 常用漢字 are the most ...
sazarando's user avatar
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13 votes
Accepted

How is Tsuyuri Kumin's name (五月七日くみん) read with 3 characters when it's made up of 4 kanji?

Say we have a Japanese word that has a meaning, and we want to write it using kanji. If we cannot find any corresponding character, we have the option of combining characters and assigning the ...
Ketchup901's user avatar
12 votes

How do attendance checklists in Japan deal with multiple possible name readings?

Well I don't know about school per se, but every form I've seen so far (Foreign registration, tax, social security, subscription to various utilities...) asks you to not only write your name, but ...
Urukann's user avatar
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12 votes
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Does 'yuki' really mean happiness?

Does 'yuki' really mean happiness? I feel like this is a loaded question, so let's break it down. The character 幸 means "happiness". If the name ゆき is written using this kanji, then it also means "...
istrasci's user avatar
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11 votes

Why do some Japanese people write parts of their name in hiragana?

I guess your coworker uses hiragana の simply because it is easier to write and 野 is very common in surnames and the natural guess for の.¹ Hiragana (or katakana) or variant kanji may also be used in ...
Earthliŋ's user avatar
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11 votes
Accepted

Why do some Japanese people write parts of their name in hiragana?

This phenomenon mainly occurs in orthodox brand/shop names. Quite a few traditional-style Japanese restaurants are officially named like もり川【かわ】 and 三【み】むら, even though 森【もり】 and 村【むら】 are not ...
naruto's user avatar
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11 votes
Accepted

Translate German name "Markus" to Japanese

Both マルクス and マーカス are common transcriptions of the name Markus or Marcus. Roughly speaking you can think of マルクス as a more German/Scandinavian-sounding transcription and マーカス as a more English-...
Earthliŋ's user avatar
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10 votes
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How do attendance checklists in Japan deal with multiple possible name readings?

First, even native Japanese adults can correctly guess the reading of the kanji names of, say, only 90% of students, at most. Quite a few people have names (either first names or surnames) with really ...
naruto's user avatar
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10 votes
Accepted

What does the letter 'P' at the end of an author's pseudonym mean?

That P (simply read ピー) stands for プロデューサー ("Producer"). Traditionally, P has been used like a name suffix for a super-high executive in the showbiz/broadcasting/anime industry (someone even ...
naruto's user avatar
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10 votes
Accepted

Can an odachi be called a katana?

刀 ("katana") as a Japanese word refers to (usually thin) single-edged swords in general, not swords in general. Etymologically, "kata" means "single". Double-edged swords ...
naruto's user avatar
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9 votes
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What is the Japanese meaning of the name "Kakka"?

"Kakka" is far from popular; it's virtually nonexistent as a Japanese person name. But there is a word 閣下 ("kakka"), which is a word used to address heads of government/state. It's like English "Your ...
naruto's user avatar
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9 votes
Accepted

Can 亞 be a simplification of 亜?

Several points the second-to-last character in 東亞学園バレㅡ部 is U+3161 HANGUL LETTER EU (from Korean), it should be ー U+30FC KATAKANA-HIRAGANA PROLONGED SOUND MARK. This is probably why Google Translate ...
Earthliŋ's user avatar
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9 votes
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Naming suffix -氏 (-し) used by an otaku character in anime

Is it otaku version of -さん? Yes...sort of. Originally, -氏【し】 is a honorific and highly formal name suffix used to refer to someone with high social status. There are several existing questions ...
naruto's user avatar
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9 votes

Why would parents ever want to name their daughters with the following names?

膣子 and 醜子 are not real person names. They may be possible as funny pen names or such, but for real person names, they are out of the question. I doubt a local government will accept registrations of ...
8 votes

Is there any Japanese language reason why Google Maps hyphenates some names and not others?

Seeing Ikeno-Ue I'll venture a guess and say that there is no reason why Google Maps hyphenates some place names and not others. Here ノ is the particle の and I would say that hyphenation of 池ノ上 ike ...
Earthliŋ's user avatar
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8 votes

Why are Japanese personal names pronounced the same but written differently?

The reason is that parents choose the kanji for their meaning. Depending on the kanji chosen, the suggested meaning is different, for example 美智子 — "beautiful wise child" 美千子 — "child of a thousand ...
Earthliŋ's user avatar
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8 votes
Accepted

How Could One Read 4649?

I think it's [4]{よ}[6]{ろ}[4]{し}[9]{く}......
chocolate's user avatar
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8 votes

How extension names is handled in Japanese (Sr, Jr, III, IV)

II, III, IV... would be 「2世{せい}」「3世{せい}」「4世{せい}」, ... as in: Johann Strauss II → 「ヨハン・シュトラウス2世{せい}」 Junior, senior would be 「ジュニア」「シニア」, as in: Martin Luther King, Jr. → 「マーティン・ルーサー・キング・ジュニア」
chocolate's user avatar
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8 votes

Does 'yuki' really mean happiness?

The question is asking about the word yuki and its relation to the meaning happiness. Kanji spellings do not always reflect the meaning of a word. Looking up yuki in several monolingual dictionaries, ...
blutorange's user avatar
  • 4,561
8 votes

How to write Hanief (my name) in Japanese?

I think that either ハニーフ or ハニフ is probably what you want. As has been mentioned in the comments, both seem to be used by people with the same name. I think the best way to choose between the two is ...
Earthliŋ's user avatar
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8 votes

Does the name Yoshi from Super Mario mean anything?

According to ヨッシー in Japanese Wikipedia: 「ヨッシー」という命名は、任天堂社員のあだ名に由来。 (Translation: The name ヨッシー derived from a nickname of a Nintendo employee.) So ヨッシー was the nickname of a real person in Nintendo....
naruto's user avatar
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