Hmm... maybe include the names of Japanese comedians or historical persons instead of simply "he"... Wait a minute, that's a brilliant idea. I was always wondering how I should learn to write names.

Indeed, yeah...  I just wanted to grab the most common 20 or so from each group type (family, boys, and girls names).  Just to have...some... grounding in names.

The first link you provided is pretty good.   The thing with the second one, I've no way to know how to read most of those (as they have multiple readings).   Bleh..  I hate names.

I wouldn't say that the naming tendencies differing by prefecture is too strange.  Amongst the English speaking countries, different countries tend to have some differences in naming.  And as someone from the United States, I know different regions have naming tendencies.

Thanks for pointing out how uncommon those names were, though.  Honestly, I haven't had nearly enough exposure to get that kinda sense.  Sometime next week, I'll take that name list I posted and have a Japanese friend just circle (or write) the most common for each of those.

Last edited by Ben_Nielson (2009 February 14, 6:56 am)

Something someone mentioned before - what about learning how to write the names of the characters from your favorite movies, anime, dorama etc? I have not tried it yet, but I'd say it would be pretty easy, considering you're already familiar with the pronunciations.

And if you feel courageous enough, or if you run out of characters, there are always the cast and crew members - directors, writers, animators, voice actors etc.

Last edited by iSoron (2009 February 14, 7:27 am)

Nukemarine wrote:

I used D-Addicts as a source to create cards for Japanese actors. (Name, pronunciation, photo, sample series starred in). I used real names and not character names since part of it would be recognition/dictation. Never got around to using it though.

I know I will be doing this hard core soon cause I really HATE only knowing faces with no names. Really annoying with Karaoke as I just know the song and not the singer.

This is similar to what I've been doing. So far, I know (both who they are and how to write their names, I go both ways): 長瀬智也、浜崎あゆみ、麻生太郎, 陣内智則 and 草野マサムネ.

I've started occasionally replacing the "he" or "she" in a sentence with the name of a person I want to learn. I works quite well. It's an easy way to learn names without having to purposely study them, and with very little extra effort.

I also just learn names of real Japanese people that I come across and find worth remembering. I prefer to do so with kanji I already know the readings for, just in case there's something irregular there that I don't want to confuse me (unlikely, but I'm cautious).

So what's the deal with 'credits' in Japanese series--they don't normally have furigana, and if there's many possible readings, does that mean the audience isn't expected to actually read them?*

*Less so than usual, that is. ^_^

Last edited by nest0r (2009 February 15, 3:39 am)

kazelee wrote:

Has anyone tried transcribing there favorite celebrities's names into Japanese using 人名用?

Possibly using anki you go name->kanji.

I don't understand what you're saying?

kazelee wrote:

nest0r wrote:

kazelee wrote:

Has anyone tried transcribing there favorite celebrities's names into Japanese using 人名用?

Possibly using anki you go name->kanji.

I don't understand what you're saying?

John Travolta -> 助音 トロボータ

Phonetic production card.

What, your favorite celebrities aren't Japanese? So racist! ;p

Nice, much appreciated.

EnjukuBlack wrote:

Ben_Nielson wrote:

The first link you provided is pretty good.

Glad it helped. One thing to keep in mind, though: Just as in other cultures, naming trends come and go. This 2008 list may have a lot of names common amongst the current batch of children, but not so common amongst the current batch of centenarians.

Ben_Nielson wrote:

The thing with the second one, I've no way to know how to read most of those (as they have multiple readings).   Bleh..  I hate names.

Don't say that. Although challenging, names can be one of the fun parts of learning Japanese.

Anyway, since I'm such a nice guy, I found a nationwide ranking, and thought I'd post some of them, starting from number one, along with their readings.

1     佐藤　さとう
2     鈴木　すずき
3     高橋　たかはし
4     田中　たなか
5     渡辺　わたなべ
6     伊藤　いとう
7     山本　やまもと
8     中村　なかむら
9     小林　こばやし
10     加藤　かとう
11     吉田　よしだ
12     山田　やまだ
13     佐々木　ささき
14     山口　やまぐち
15     松本　まつもと
16     井上　いのうえ／いうえ (いのうえ is probably the more common reading)
17     斎藤　さいとう
18     木村　きむら
19     林　はやし
20     清水　きよみず
21     山崎　やまざき
22     森　もり
23     阿部　あべ
24     池田　いけだ
25     橋本　はしもと
26     山下　やました
27     石川　いしかわ
28     中島　なかじま
29     前田　まえだ
30     藤田　ふじた
31     小川　おがわ
32     岡田　おかだ
33     後藤　ごとう
34     長谷川　はせがわ
35     村上　むらかみ
36     近藤　こんどう
37     石井　いしい
38     坂本　さかもと
39     遠藤　えんどう
40     青木　あおき
41     藤井　ふじい
42     西村　にしむら
43     福田　ふくだ
44     太田　おおた
45     斉藤　さいとう
46     三浦　みうら
47     藤原　ふじわら／ふじはら (ふじわら is more common)
48     岡本 おかもと
49     松田　まつだ
50     中川　なかがわ

Hopefully this can be of some use. The above names are all, indeed, very, very common. I personally never study names, but I was able to read all of these without any problem (which says less about my Japanese ability and more about how common these names are ).

For anyone interested, here is the complete list of the top 30,000 names in Japan (can number 30,000 still be considered a 'top' name?!?).

thank you so much! it's exactly what I was looking for !
Instead of learning the names of my favorite idols ,  I think I'll go the other way : I'll go for idols and celebs with those names and put a picture.

ghinzdra wrote:

BTW where did you get the readings ? I didn't find any on the website .
Please  , pretty please  don't tell me you had to search for every and each of them in EDICT or something like that !

No, like I said - I was able to read all of these names without looking them up. They are all very common, just as their high ranking in that list suggests.

mentat_kgs wrote:

The list looks fine, but this is wrong:
20     清水　きよみず

Is read as しみず

It isn't wrong. Just another way of reading the same name.

Both きよみず and しみず are commonly used readings for this name. しみず just didn't pop into mind while I was writing out the readings for this list.

(I know someone named 清水(きよみず), which is probably why that reading was stronger in my memory.)