Wednesday, February 28, 2007
My Japanese name
In Japan, people's names are written in kanji ("Chinese Characters"), which would be similar to us using a trademark or a numeral as part or all of our name. However, each kanji has several different pronunciations...a kanji like 出 can have several readings, such as da, de, deru, and more. This means that one's name, in Japan, actually has several different readings, and part of telling someone your name is telling them which reading suits their name.
As a result, it was somewhat difficult to know how my name is written in Japanese. I can always write it in Katakana, which is the syllabary that is used for foreign words, and this functions as an alphabet of sorts, but this is unusual for a person's name.
So here's the story:
This weekend we met this very interesting poet, who is a neighbor of ours, named nakajima-san. I will write more about him later, but one of his hobbies, and a rather serious one at that, is writing poetry based on people's names. He wrote a lovely poem based on Yukie's name, and then, after we told him my name, he pondered for a bit and wrote out my name in Kanji...with a lovely poem to go with it.
So I finally have a Japanese name:
出 井 美 津 土 九 麗 壽 帆
which is read:
The "-" (dash) stands for the tsu character, usually written "ッ" but here replaced by a homonym, and is used in japanese to express long vowels as in "bi -". This makes my name have nine "syllables", which is supposed to represent the nine continents. My name, if we look at the meanings associated with the characters has a lot to do with water...five, I think, of the characters represent water in some way. Very interesting.
To be continued...
As a result, it was somewhat difficult to know how my name is written in Japanese. I can always write it in Katakana, which is the syllabary that is used for foreign words, and this functions as an alphabet of sorts, but this is unusual for a person's name.
So here's the story:
This weekend we met this very interesting poet, who is a neighbor of ours, named nakajima-san. I will write more about him later, but one of his hobbies, and a rather serious one at that, is writing poetry based on people's names. He wrote a lovely poem based on Yukie's name, and then, after we told him my name, he pondered for a bit and wrote out my name in Kanji...with a lovely poem to go with it.
So I finally have a Japanese name:
出 井 美 津 土 九 麗 壽 帆
which is read:
de i bi - do ku re su po
The "-" (dash) stands for the tsu character, usually written "ッ" but here replaced by a homonym, and is used in japanese to express long vowels as in "bi -". This makes my name have nine "syllables", which is supposed to represent the nine continents. My name, if we look at the meanings associated with the characters has a lot to do with water...five, I think, of the characters represent water in some way. Very interesting.
To be continued...
Labels: life in japan
permalink posted at
11:09:00 AM 
