Japan is a unique country. What is behind these words? Special, unique nature, culture, religion, philosophy, art, lifestyle, fashion, cuisine, the harmonious coexistence of high technology and ancient traditions, as well as the Japanese language itself - is as difficult to learn as it is fascinating. One of the most important parts of the language are names and surnames. They always carry a piece of history, and the Japanese are doubly curious.
Decipher name
Why do we foreigners need to know all this? Firstly, because it is informative and interesting, because Japanese culture has penetrated into many areas of our modern life. It is very exciting to decipher the names of famous people: for example, the cartoonist Miyazaki - "temple, palace" + "cape", and the writer Murakami - "village" + "top". Secondly, all this has long and firmly become part of the youth subculture.
Fans of comics (manga) and animation (anime) simply love to take various Japanese names and surnames as pseudonyms. Sump and other online games also make extensive use of such aliases for player characters. And no wonder: such a nickname sounds beautiful, exotic andmemorable.
These mysterious Japanese names and surnames
The Land of the Rising Sun will always find something to surprise an ignorant foreigner. It is noteworthy that when recording or formally introducing a person, his last name comes first, and then his first name, for example: Sato Aiko, Tanaka Yukio. For the Russian ear, this sounds unusual, and therefore it can be quite difficult for us to distinguish Japanese names and surnames from each other. The Japanese themselves, in order to avoid confusion when communicating with foreigners, often write down their last name in capital letters. And it really makes things easier. Fortunately, it is customary for the Japanese to have only one given name and one surname. And such a form as a patronymic (patronymic), this people does not have at all.
Another unusual feature of Japanese communication is the active use of prefixes. Moreover, these prefixes are most often attached to the surname. European psychologists say that there is nothing more pleasant for a person than the sound of his name - but the Japanese, apparently, think otherwise. Therefore, names are used only in situations of very close and personal communication.
What prefixes are there in Japanese?
- (surname) + san - universal courtesy;
- (surname) + sama - an appeal to members of the government, directors of companies, clerics; also used in stable combinations;
- (surname) + sensei - an appeal to martial arts masters, doctors, as well as professionals in any field;
- (surname) + kun - an appeal to teenagers and young men, as well as an older one to a younger one or a superior to a subordinate (for example, a boss tosubordinate);
- (name) + chan (or chan) - an appeal to children and among children under 10 years old; appeal of parents to their offspring of any age; in an informal setting - to beloved and close friends.
How common are Japanese given names and surnames? Surprisingly, even family members rarely call each other by their first names. Instead, special words are used that mean "mother", "dad", "daughter", "son", "older sister", "younger sister", "big brother", "little brother", etc. To these words prefixes “chan (chan)” are also added.
Female names
Girls in Japan are most often called by names that mean something abstract, but at the same time beautiful, pleasant and feminine: “flower”, “crane”, “bamboo”, “water lily”, “chrysanthemum”, "moon" and the like. Simplicity and harmony - that's what distinguishes Japanese names and surnames.
Female names in many cases contain syllables (hieroglyphs) "mi" - beauty (for example: Harumi, Ayumi, Kazumi, Mie, Fumiko, Miyuki) or "ko" - child (for example: Maiko, Naoko, Haruko, Yumiko, Yoshiko, Hanako, Takako, Asako).
Interestingly, some girls in modern Japan consider the "ko" ending unfashionable and omit it. So, for example, the name "Yumiko" turns into the everyday "Yumi". And her friends refer to this girl as Yumi-chan.
All of the above are quite common female Japanese names in our time. And the names of the girls are also distinguished by amazing poetry, especially if translatedexotic combination of sounds into Russian. Most often they convey the image of a typical Japanese rural landscape. For example: Yamamoto - "mountain base", Watanabe - "to cross the neighborhood", Iwasaki - "rocky cape", Kobayashi - "small forest".
A whole poetic world is opened by Japanese names and surnames. The women's ones are especially similar to haiku pieces, surprising with their beautiful sound and harmonious meaning.
Male names
The names of men are the most difficult to read and translate. Some of them are formed from nouns. For example: Moku ("carpenter"), Akio ("handsome"), Ketsu ("victory"), Makoto ("truth"). Others are formed from adjectives or verbs, for example: Satoshi ("smart"), Mamoru ("protect"), Takashi ("high"), Tsutomu ("try").
Very often, Japanese male names and surnames include characters indicating gender: "man", "husband", "hero", "assistant", "tree", etc.
Often use of ordinal numbers. This tradition originated in the Middle Ages, when there were many children in families. For example, the name Ichiro means "first son", Jiro means "second son", Saburo means "third son", and so on up to Juro, which means "tenth son".
Japanese boyfriend names and surnames can be created simply on the basis of the hieroglyphs available in the language. During the imperial dynasties, noble people attached great importance to naming themselves and their children, but in modern Japan, the preference is given simply to the fact thatI liked the sound and meaning. At the same time, it is absolutely not necessary for children from the same family to have names with a common hieroglyph, as was traditionally practiced in the imperial dynasties of the past.
All Japanese male names and surnames have two features in common: the semantic echoes of the Middle Ages and the difficulty of reading, especially for a foreigner.
Common Japanese surnames
Surnames are distinguished by a large number and variety: according to linguists, there are more than 100,000 surnames in the Japanese language. For comparison: there are 300-400 thousand Russian surnames.
The most common Japanese surnames today: Sato, Suzuki, Takahashi, Tanaka, Yamamoto, Watanabe, Saito, Kudo, Sasaki, Kato, Kobayashi, Murakami, Ito, Nakamura, Onishi, Yamaguchi, Kuroki, Higa.
A curious fact: Japanese names and surnames have different popularity, depending on the area. For example, in Okinawa (the country's southernmost prefecture), the surnames Chinan, Higa, and Shimabukuro are quite common, while in the rest of Japan, very few people carry them. Experts attribute this to differences in dialects and culture. Thanks to these differences, the Japanese can tell by the last name of their interlocutor where he comes from.
Such different names and surnames
European culture is characterized by certain traditional names, from which parents choose the most suitable for their baby. Fashion trends often change, and one or the other becomes popular, but rarely does anyone come up with a unique name on purpose. In Japanese business culturethe situation is different: there are much more single or rarely occurring names. Therefore, there is no traditional list. Japanese names (and surnames too) are often formed from some beautiful words or phrases.
Poetry of the name
First of all, women's names are distinguished by a pronounced poetic meaning. For example:
- Yuri - Water Lily.
- Hotaru - Firefly.
- Izumi - Fountain.
- Namiko - "Child of the Waves".
- Aika - "Love Song".
- Natsumi - "Summer Beauty".
- Chiyo - "Eternity".
- Nozomi - Hope.
- Ima - "Gift".
- Riko - "Child of Jasmine".
- Kiku - Chrysanthemum.
However, among the male names you can find beautiful meanings:
- Keitaro - "Blessed".
- Toshiro - Talented.
- Yuki - "Snow";.
- Yuzuki - Half Moon.
- Takehiko - Bamboo Prince.
- Raydon - "God of Thunder".
- Toru - "Sea".
Family Poetry
There are not only beautiful Japanese names. And last names can be very poetic. For example:
- Arai - Wild Well.
- Aoki - "Young (green) tree".
- Yoshikawa - Happy River.
- Ito - Wisteria.
- Kikuchi - "Chrysanthemum Pond".
- Komatsu - Little Pine.
- Matsuura - Pine Cove.
- Nagai - "The Eternal Well".
- Ozawa - Little Swamp.
- Oohashi - Big Bridge.
- Shimizu –"Clean Water".
- Chiba - "Thousand leaves".
- Furukawa - Old River.
- Yano - Arrow in the Plain.
Bring a smile
Sometimes there are funny Japanese names and surnames, or rather, funny-sounding for the Russian ear.
Among these are male names: Bank, Quiet (emphasis on "a"), Usho, Joban, Soshi (emphasis on "o"). Among women, it’s funny for a Russian-speaking person to sound: Hey, Wasp, Ori, Cho, Ruka, Rana, Yura. But such funny examples are extremely rare, given the rich variety of Japanese names.
As for the surnames, here you can find a strange and difficult to pronounce combination of sounds rather than a funny one. However, this is easily compensated by numerous funny parodies of Japanese names and surnames. Of course, they are all invented by Russian-speaking jokers, but there is still some phonetic similarity with the originals. For example, such a parody: Japanese racer Toyama Tokanawa; or the Japanese singer Tohripo Tovizgo. Behind all these "names" one can easily guess the phrase in Russian.
Interesting facts about Japanese names and surnames
In Japan, there is still a law that has been preserved since the Middle Ages, according to which a husband and wife must have the same surname. Almost always, this is the husband's surname, but there are exceptions - for example, if the wife is from a noble, famous family. However, so far in Japan it does not happen that spouses have a double surname or each of their own.
In general, in the Middle Ages, only Japanese emperors, aristocrats and samurai wore surnames, and ordinary people were content with nicknames, which were often attached to names. For example, the place of residence, occupation, or even the name of the father was often used as a nickname.
Japanese women in the Middle Ages also often did not have surnames: it was believed that they did not need anything, because they were not heirs. The names of girls from aristocratic families often ended in "hime" (which means "princess"). Samurai wives had names ending in gozen. Often they were addressed by the surname and title of the husband. But personal names, both then and now, are used only in close communication. Japanese monks and nuns from the nobility had names ending in "in".
After death, each Japanese acquires a new name (it is called "kaimyo"). It is written on a sacred wooden tablet called "ihai". A posthumous name tablet is used in burial rites and memorial rituals, as it is considered the embodiment of the spirit of the deceased person. People often acquire kaimyo and ihai from Buddhist monks during their lifetime. In the views of the Japanese, death is not something tragic, but rather one of the stages on the path of an immortal soul.
Learning more about Japanese names and surnames, you can not only learn the basics of the language in a peculiar way, but also better understand the philosophy of this people.
