I wanted to do one of the "Japanese Names" decks, but after taking a look at the common ones, they all seemed very low quality. Lot's of mistakes, uncommon readings, etc.

I have made a deck with 500 common Japanese surnames. Here's the good points of this deck:

1) No uncommon/weird/incorrect readings.
2) All names have been checked by a native speaker.

If you're looking for good names deck, look no further.

https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1335948703

This looks like an improvement on the other '500 names' deck (which I have been using), so thanks for your work on this.

However, this deck conflicts with the other deck and overwrites it without warning. You might like to consider changing the name

My biggest gripe with names is trying to remember which of the plausible readings is the 'right' one, in particular whether they have a sound change or not. I was stalled at 100 cards for months on the other deck for this reason, but having browsed through the cards, this deck looks a bit easier in that regard, so hopefully will be less of a burden to finish - thanks again!

thanks for the deck, looks great!

Is there any guide or general rules about when which readings are used? Kun seem to be most used so far, but sometimes there are weird exceptions.
For example 本being usually read as もと but in 本間 as ほん.

Actually もと is a pretty uncommon reading for 本. It's usually ほん.
Usually you can get away with using the kun reading for when a character is by itself, and the on reading when it's in a compound. Usually. Unfortunately, exceptions are all over the place, so it's better to think of them as educated guesses rather than a rule.

I think he just meant in names, not in general. I believe kun-yomi are more common in names but there are some common names (like 本田) that use on-yomi for at least one of the characters.

z1bbo Wrote:Is there any guide or general rules about when which readings are used? Kun seem to be most used so far, but sometimes there are weird exceptions.

Not as far as I know. You just have to memorize each name.

In general, names use the kun-yomi, but there are a lot of exceptions.

anotherjohn Wrote:However, this deck conflicts with the other deck and overwrites it without warning. You might like to consider changing the name

I went on the ankiweb site, but I couldn't find any way to change the deck title. Does anyone know how to do this?

Wow, I somehow missed that.
Props to you, if you're going to learn them.
I've hardly read "real" Japanese outside of textbooks (meaning most names are in katakana) so everything else I add as I go.
Same deal with counters and onomatopoeic words.