3 Customs

In ancient times, people in Japan were considered the property of the Emperor and their surname reflected the role in the government they served. An example is Otomo. Names would also be given in the recognition of a great achievement and contribution. Many surnames originated from Chinese and Korean names. Examples are Kaneshiro (金城) (Chinese) and Chang (Korean).

Until the Meiji restoration, Japanese common people (people other than kuge and samurai) had no surnames, and when necessary, used a substitute such as the name of their birthplace. For example, Ichiro born in Asahi mura (Asahi village) in the province of Musashi would say "Ichiro from Asahi-mura of Musashi". Merchants were named after their brands (for example, Dembei, the owner of Sagamiya, would be Sagamiya Dembei), and farmers were named after their fathers. After the Meiji restoration, the government ordered all commoners to assume surnames in addition to their given names: many people adopted historical names, while others simply made names up or had a local sage make up a surname. This explains, in part, the large number of surnames in Japan, as well as their great diversity of spellings and pronunciations.

During the period when typical parents had several children, it was a common practice to name sons by numbers suffixed with ro (郎, "son"). The first son would be known as "Ichiro", the second as "Jiro", and so on. Girls were often named with ko (子, "child") at the end of the given name; this should not be confused with the less common male suffix hiko (彦). Both practices have become less common, although many children still have names along these lines.

Within families, younger family members generally refer to older family members by title rather than name, e.g. kaasan "mother" or niichan "big brother". Older family members refer to younger family members by given name. Outside of the family people are generally referred to by family name (村田さん Murata-san), by position (e.g. 先生 sensei, "teacher"), or by a combination of the two (村田先生 Murata-sensei ). Given names are used when referring to adult friends or to children. Names are almost never spoken or written without some sort of honorific, either a title like sensei or a general honorific like -san (さん), -kun (くん、君), or -chan (ちゃん). Honorifics are omitted only in intimate relationships. Some people, especially children, may be called by a shortened form of their name: typically "small tsu" (っ, the phonemic lengthener) is involved, and an honorific may be permanently attached: Satchan for Sachiko, Akki for Akihito, Takkun for Takuya, Katchan for Kazuya, and so forth.

Often, Japanese people avoid referring to others by name, substituting a title. The uses of sensei (先生) and kinship words mentioned above are two instances of this. Senpai (先輩, predecessor, one's senior) likewise replaces a name extremely often, in social situations ranging from elementary school through working life. Daily life, the workplace, and mass media provide many other illustrations of people calling someone kacho, bucho, torishimari, senmu (専務), shacho (社長), todori, kyodo, gakubucho (titles of rank within companies and schools), senshu, toshu, kantoku, sekitori (titles from sports), and a host of other words in place of a name.

While family members, spouses and lovers sometimes call each other by their given names, they are otherwise used only rarely, even among close friends; most people call each other by the surname plus the suffix -san (Tanaka-san). An exception is schoolgirls, who often call each other by the first name, plus the fond diminutive suffix -chan. Even within the family, there is a marked tendency to avoid the use of names in favour of titles like "older brother," "younger sister" and so on. It is not uncommon for people, particularly older people, to be unsure of their friends' given names.

Indeed, even so the use of the suffix -san (さん), meaning roughly "Mrs., Mr., Ms., Master, Miss, Mistress." is customary in addressing a person by name. This suffix is used with both surnames and given names, and failure to use it is called 呼び捨て (yobisute, literally "throwing away the name") and is considered exceedingly rude. The respectful equivalent of -san is -様 (-sama), and the fond diminutive equivalent is -chan (-ちゃん). Young boys and younger men are often addressed as -kun (-くん、君).

Occasionally, the common Japanese practice of forming abbreviations by concatenating the first two morae of two words (similar to English TLAs) is applied to names (usually those of celebrities). For example, Kimura Takuya (木村 拓哉), a famous Japanese actor and singer, becomes Kimutaku (キムタク); Ito Jun'ichi , a prominent Japanese hacker, can be Itojun. This is sometimes applied even to non-Japanese celebrities: notably, Brad Pitt is occasionally known as Burapi (ブラピ) (the final っ is dropped). Also, many Japanese celebrities take names combining kanji and katakana, such as Beat Takeshi.

4 Names from other ethnic groups in Japan

Many ethnic minorities living in Japan adopt Japanese names to ease communication and, more importantly, to avoid discrimination. But a few of them still keep their native name. Among them are Chang Woo Han , a founder and chairman of Maruhan Corp., a large chain of pachinko parlors in Japan.

Japanese citizenship, however, requires adopting a Japanese name. In recent decades, the government has allowed individuals to simply adopt katakana versions of their native names when applying for citizenship: Martti Turunen, who became " Tsurunen Marutei" (ツルネン マルテイ), is a famous example. Others transliterate their names into phonetically similar kanji compounds, such as David Aldwinckle, who became "Arudou Debito" (有道出人). Still others have abandoned their native names entirely in favor of traditional Japanese names, such as Lafcadio Hearn, who used the name "Koizumi Yakumo" (小泉 八雲).

Ethnic Chinese and Koreans in Japan sometimes have to change the characters in their names to apply for citizenship, because of the restrictions on which kanji can be used.

Individuals born overseas with Western given names and Japanese surnames are usually given a katakana name in Western order when referred to in Japanese. Eric Shinseki, for instance, is referred to as エリック シンセキ.

5 Imperial names

The Japanese emperor and Crown Prince have no surname for historical reasons, only a given name such as Hirohito (裕仁), which is rarely used in Japan: Japanese prefer to say "the Emperor" or "the Crown Prince", out of respect and as a measure of politeness.

When children are born into the Imperial family, they are given a standard given name, as well as a special Imperial surname. Akihito, for instance, was born as Tsugo-no-miya Akihito, and was referred to as "Prince Tsugo" during his childhood. The Imperial surname is generally used until the individual becomes heir to the throne or inherits one of the historical prince names (常陸 Hitachi, 三笠 Mikasa, 秋篠 Akishino, etc.).

Many members of the extended Imperial family became commoners after World War II, and adopted their Imperial surnames as regular surnames. An example is Asaka Yasuhiko.

See also: Imperial Household of Japan

6 Historical names

The current structure (family name + given name) did not materialize until the 1870s when the government made the new family registration system.

The Ryukyans, being vassals of the Chinese empires and influenced more by Chinese high culture rather than that of Japanese Shintoism, have names similar in form to those of the Chinese.

In feudal Japan, names reflected a person's social status. They also reflect a person's affiliation to Buddhist, Shinto, feudatory-military, Confucian-scholarly, mercantile, peasant, slave and imperial orders.

Before feudal times, clan names figured prominently in history: names with no fall into this category. (No means of, although the association is in the opposite order in Japanese, and is not generally explicitly written in this style of name.) Thus, Minamoto no Yoritomo (源 頼朝) was Yoritomo (頼朝) of the Minamoto (源) clan. Fujiwara no Kamatari, Ki no Tsurayuki (紀 貫之), and Taira no Kiyomori (平 清盛) are additional examples.

Historically, a Japanese person could maintain several names to use in different occasions. Among those that were common are Azana, Imina or Okurina (either translate to posthumous name) and Go or Kago (a pen name). It was not uncommon for one to have more than 10 names. [1] Imina is the same as one's real name and the real name would be called Imina posthumously. It is called so because after one's death, he would be referred by his Okurina while the pronunciation of Imina is being avoided. Azana, which is given at Genpuku(元服), is used by others and one himself uses his real name to refer to him. Kago is commonly named after places or houses.

In the late shogunate period, many anti-government activists used several false names to hide their activities from the shogunate. Examples are Saitani Umetaro (才谷梅太郎) for Sakamoto Ryoma (坂本 龍馬), Niibori Matsusuke (新堀松輔) for Kido Takayoshi (木戸 孝允) and Tani Umenosuke (谷梅之助) for Takasugi Shinsaku (高杉 晋作). The famous writer Kyokutei Bakin (曲亭 馬琴) is known to have had as many as 33 names.

7 Professional names

Actors and actresses in Western and Japanese dramatic forms, comedians, sumo wrestlers, and practitioners of traditional crafts often use professional names. Kabuki actors take one of the traditional surnames such as Nakamura (中村), Bando or Onoe. Many stage names of television and film actors and actresses are unremarkable, being just like ordinary Japanese personal names, but a few are tongue-in-cheek. For example, Kamatari Fujiwara (藤原 鎌足) chose the name of the aforementioned founder of the Fujiwara family, while Hino Yojin (火の用心)'s name means beware of fire (although written differently). Many stand-up comics like the duo Beat Takeshi and Beat Kiyoshi choose a Western name for the act, and use their own (or stage) given names. Writers also tend to be clever about their names, for example Edogawa Ranpo which is designed to sound like "Edgar Allan Poe".

Sumo wrestlers take wrestling names called shikona (醜名 or 四股名). While a shikona can be the wrestler's own surname, most upper-division rikishi have a shikona different from their surname. A typical shikona consists of one, two or three kanji. Often, part of the name comes from the wrestler's master, a place name (such as the name of a province, a river, or a sea), the name of a weapon, an item identified with Japanese tradition (like a koto or nishiki ), or a term indicating superiority. Often, waka indicates a wrestler whose father was also in sumo; in this case, the meaning is junior. Wrestlers can change their shikona, as Takahanada did when he became Takanohana (貴ノ花) and then Takanohana (貴乃花). Another notable example is the wrestler Sentoryu, which means fighting war dragon but is also homophonous with St. Louis, his city of origin.

Geisha and practitioners of traditional crafts and arts such as pottery, the tea ceremony, calligraphy, irezumi (tattooing) and ikebana (flower arranging) often take professional names. In many cases, these come from the master under whom they studied.

8 Japanese names in English

As is the case for other transliteration, writing Japanese names in English pose several issues, mainly romanization and name order issues.

As this differs from the ordering used in many other parts of the world, some, particularly academics, adopt the convention of writing the family name in upper case when the name is romanized: for example, Takuya MURATA or MURATA Takuya. Artists whose works are distributed in English outside of Japan often opt for a Western ordering on the English editions of their works: e.g., Ryuichi Sakamoto (坂本 龍一 Sakamoto Ryuichi), Shunji Iwai, and Haruki Murakami (村上 春樹 Murakami Haruki). Japanese living overseas, such as Yoko Ono (オノ ヨーコ Ono Yoko) and Ichiro Suzuki (鈴木 一朗 Suzuki Ichiro), usually use the Western order as well.

Most foreign scholars of Japanese history and literature use the Japanese order, so historical and literary figures are usually referred to in that order: e.g., Murasaki Shikibu (紫 式部) and Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川 家康). However, English publications tend to prefer the Western order when discussing contemporary individuals.

The following English publications tend to use the western order to refer to Japanese figures:

• Newspapers: see Japanese newspapers
• Credits in movies
• Characters in comics
• Books concerning comtemporary Japanese cultures like music

The following tend to keep the original Japanese order:

• Scholastic articles
• Reference works including encyclopedia
• Books concerning historical Japanese activities like Go and Waka

Characters in translated Japanese manga, anime and video games are a special case. They are sometimes given new Western names (as in Pokemon for example), or they may keep their original Japanese names in either Japanese or Western name order. They may also have non- Hepburn transliterations of their names, or even different transliterations between different editions or between manga, anime and/or video game versions.

9 See also

• List of Japanese given names
• List of most popular family names#Japan
• Chinese name
• Korean name

10 Further reading

• P.G. O'Neill. Japanese Names 1972 BooksEnthsiast.com Weatherhill Inc.

11 External link

• 10. Japanese names of Alternative sci.lang.japan FAQ
• Japanese names at japan-guide.com .
• Japanorama: Japanese Names
• Japanese Given Names

Names Names by culture *

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