

Watanabe helped to translate a few of this year's top contenders. The results are only written in Japanese, but luckily Dr. The Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Company in Japan conducts an annual survey of popular Japanese baby names. There are three main scripts: hiragana, katakana and kanji.

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When Japanese parents name a baby, they often consider the meanings of kanji (Chinese characters), the number of strokes in the kanji, the balance of kanji between the last name and first name and the sound/pronunciation of the name, said Kolbe in her 2020 study, “ Child Naming Practice and Changing Trends in Modern Japan.” New parents in Japan also must choose how to write the name. In Japan, a newborn's birth must be recorded within 14 days in the family registry or koseki, a version of the SSA that functions as the legal document to verify identity. Then notice that nature-inspired and gender-neutral names are trending. The lists may help inspire visions of who you want your child to be. These lists of Japanese baby names are compiled with references from the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) annual database of popular names and lists from sites that keep track of their users' baby names like Nameberry and, along with translated names and suggestions from Watanabe, an adjunct assistant professor in the department of modern languages and literatures at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, and Noriko Kolbe, senior lecturer at Georgia Southern University’s department of world languages and cultures. New parents can choose a name based on sound or the warmth it elicits when the perfect combo is discovered. Noriko Watanabe in her study, “ Poetics of Japanese Naming Practices.”īut there is no wrong way to fall in love with a name. In Japanese naming practices, new parents try to “express their visions of their child's life, personality and wishes for what kind of person they want the child to be,” says Dr. They can give a sneak peek into a family’s personal preferences or pop culture consumption, especially since Japanese influence is pervasive in American culture through anime and games.

Names can be cultural and personal signifiers of identity. Keiji Godber (left) and Jin Godber (right) were named in part to honor their Japanese heritage.
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The name Keiji (pronounced kay-gee and means “to move forward and patch up disagreements”) was inspired by video game producer Keiji Inafume to which the couple has no connection except that they liked the name. Keiji Jake Godber was the name that officially made the cut, followed in 2015 by little brother, Jin Mason Godber. “I was suggesting names that I knew you'd reject so that I could get the one I wanted,” Oliver, Sakura's husband, joked. The couple created lists of potential Japanese baby names. “We need to have Japanese names for their identity, purpose,” says Godber, an insurance underwriter from Pasadena, California. When it came time to name their son, her husband emphasized the value of honoring her Japanese ancestry, so she made a swift mental switch. Her own first name, which means “cherry blossom” in Japanese, was paired with a Western middle name - Diane - to reflect her Japanese American identity.īut for a time during her childhood, Godber wished to be more legible to American society and wanted to be called by her middle name.

Sakura Godber’s first instinct when considering baby names for her son in 2012 was to lean towards more Western names.
