I know there’re a lot of people out there who are against putting your name into kanji. It’s cheesy, fake, embarrassing and what have you.
To tell you the truth, I wasn’t very impressed with the idea of getting my name in kanji, either. I like my name. I like it a lot. Alexander. It’s got strength behind it. Will. Resolution. But I went ahead and adopted a kanji name anyway. Here’s how and why.
My wife brought up the topic initially. She wanted to know what I’d call her in English if I gave her an “English name”. Unflinchingly, I told her, “Natalie.” (Natalie Portman) But that’s just the name of an actress I like. It has nothing to do with my wife. So I started looking through etymology dictionaries focusing on names, and found one I thought would work.
My wife has an extremely common Korean name. Eun Hye. If you threw a rock in Seoul train station, chances are very high that you’d hit an Eun Hye. (I don’t encourage you to try it!) Most Korean students adopt an “English name” when they communicate with English-speakers, and most Eun Hye’s choose “Grace”. (The name has the kanji 恵 in it) I wanted to keep the meaning of her name intact, but I didn’t want to just give her the same name everyone else uses. Which is why I chose Hannah for her, instead.
It’s perfect. It means “grace”, and it’s from Hebrew (Channah). Unfortunately, she didn’t take to it immediately. I’m going to try calling her by it for the next few days and see if it catches on. It’s a lot better than how Japanese mistakenly read her name – ぎんけい. (Ginkei)
Anyway, after doing all that searching for her name, I thought I’d look for one for me that I could use in both Japanese and Korean (and I guess Chinese too, for that matter). I’ve known for a long time how I would choose kanji for my name, which is by meaning instead of by sound. What’s the point of adopting a name that sounds exactly like the one you already have, after all?
Besides, it isn’t just the letters that I like about my name, but the meaning behind them. I wanted to maintain the meaning of my name. Alexander – “Defend” (Alexo) and “mankind” (aner). So I looked around for kanji that fit the definition.
護 – safeguard; protect. Possible reading: もり (as in 護斗 – もりと)
世 – world. Possible reading: よ
護世 – もりよ (Moriyo) – Defend ・world (Defender of mankind)
In Korean, the same kanji would be read as 호세* (Ho-seh. Sounds like “Jose”). I asked my wife how the name sounded in both Japanese and Korean, and she liked both of them, so I’m sticking with it.
はじめまして。護世と申します。どうぞよろしくお願いいたします。
*The name 호세 already exists in Korean, but the kanji typically used are different.
Update:
A couple of my Chinese students insisted that the literal interpretation of my name is reminiscent of Western imperialism and downright presumptuous, so they changed my name to ’shell something something’…I actually lost the paper they gave me, but I’ll abandon 護世 all together nevertheless.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Well, I think this could be fun. I once chose kanji for my name, but it was purely a phonetic joke thing. I wound up choosing 泥豆 (でい・ず), or “mud bean” as a giggle-starter. I’d like to make up a meaning-based rendition, but as you know, I have no idea what my name actually means. I could go with my middle name – Manning – it means “son of the hero.” That’s kinda cool, right? At least as a more legitimate placeholder than mud bean…
Since my mom is Taiwanese, I have a Chinese name (with characters obviously) but I’m not sure how you’d pronounce it in Japanese or Korean.
If you post it here I’ll see if I can put Japanese and Korean to it.
Awesome!
岱雅婷, with 岱 being my last name. I think my first name is pretty common in Taiwan.
In Japanese,
雅 can be commonly read as one of the following: Sayaka, Shizuka, Masami, Miyaka, miya, ka, ga, and yaka.
婷 isn’t a common character in Japanese, but you can read it as Tei or Chou. Since it also has the reading of Utsuku・shii, you might be able to use the readings from 美 instead and get Miki, Myuu, Mei, Mi, Bi, etc.
The first name to jump out at me from the possible combination would be “Miyami”.
As for your family name, it looks like you’d read it as Tai, although it’s not a common character in Japan.
But, on paper, you might put it all together as “Tai Miyami” (タイ・ミヤミ) or “Tai Misami” (タイ・ミサミ)
In Korean, you might read it 대아미 (De Ami), but I can’t be sure as the first two characters aren’t common. However, there is typically a space on forms to write in the reading as you prefer it. (For example, 李 can be “ri” in Japanese, but the Korean pronunciation is just “i”)
That’s really cool! I’ve always wanted to use that name if I ever went to Korea or Japan.
Thank you very much for the information. *saves*