Just FYI - 清水 is not a "difficult example", but technically, there is no "wrong" in Japanese names - if the person with the name tells you it's pronounced that way, then it's pronounced that way.

They can have Kanji that look nothing like the pronunciation... ...don't fight the person for having a different name!

Ahaha, sorry to correct you, then.
As fabrice said once, there are few things worse than an incorrect pedant.
Bul I'll stick to old people's names then. These young Japanese people have way too much imagination.

kfmfe04 Wrote:Just FYI - 清水 is not a "difficult example", but technically, there is no "wrong" in Japanese names - if the person with the name tells you it's pronounced that way, then it's pronounced that way.

They can have Kanji that look nothing like the pronunciation... ...don't fight the person for having a different name!

Although this is certainly true of given names, family names tend to be set. Especially with the really common names like the ones from that list.

So, with the 清水 example, I really doubt that you'll find anyone with that last name pronouncing it something other than きよみず or しみず.

Given names, however, can pretty much be at the whim of the parents. I've literally met a girl with the name 空. I said, "oh, your name's Sora." "Nope," she said. "It's Sky (すかい)." :|

kfmfe04 Wrote:Just FYI - 清水 is not a "difficult example", but technically, there is no "wrong" in Japanese names - if the person with the name tells you it's pronounced that way, then it's pronounced that way.

They can have Kanji that look nothing like the pronunciation... ...don't fight the person for having a different name!

I think this is a very important point. The guy sitting across from me in the office just had a kid last fall and they named him "auto" pronounced like "autumn" minus the final "mn" cause they think "autumn" is a cool English word. But the kanji they chose don't even have any readings close to those. They said they picked more normal name kanji so he wouldn't stand out when his name was written...

It should be noted that this happens in English as well, if rarely. There's a man from the US whose information I can't find offhand who changed his last name as per the requirements on some relative's will, but declared that it was pronounced the same way as his old last name.

~J

It's spelled Luxuryyacht but it's pronounced Throatwarblermangrove.