When officially registering in Japan, is it better to use katakana, or could you use kanji if you had a kanji name?

My Japanese friend gave me kanji for my given name, 樹利亜... but I could always write it in katakana if I had to (ジュリア). She did the same for my surname as well.

julz6453 wrote:

When officially registering in Japan, is it better to use katakana, or could you use kanji if you had a kanji name?

My Japanese friend gave me kanji for my given name, 樹利亜... but I could always write it in katakana if I had to (ジュリア). She did the same for my surname as well.

Actually I think you register in romaji.  For those cases where you have to supply a kana reading, do a direct transliteration of whatever name is on your passport.  Avoid trying to use any name that doesn't clearly match the official romaji version -- even if you normally go by a different name.  If the name on your passport is Robert, don't write a katakana version of Rob, Bob, Bobby, etc.  If you have a middle name on your passport, don't leave it out in the katakana version.
In cases where there are multiple reasonable readings (マルク vs マーク), either is probably OK, but if you're マルク on one official record, you'd better not write your name as マーク on another, or you're asking for a hassle at some point down the line.

squeaky_lill_mk:  Is your name Emma?  Yes, I think Emma sounds a lot more like　エマ than エンマ, at least the way I say it.  エッマ is non-standard use of kana, I think.

b0ng0:  Is your name...  Deev?  Dive?  Or is it Dave?  ディ sounds like "dee".  デー or デイ sounds like "day".  Anyway, ヴ is not uncommon in katakana．I was about to say that I think it needs to be followed by a small vowel, but I see ENAMDIC has listings for デイヴ　and スティヴ, so I guess it's fine.

Last edited by snallygaster (2009 March 31, 11:00 am)

snallygaster wrote:

Actually I think you register in romaji.  For those cases where you have to supply a kana reading, do a direct transliteration of whatever name is on your passport.  Avoid trying to use any name that doesn't clearly match the official romaji version -- even if you normally go by a different name.  If the name on your passport is Robert, don't write a katakana version of Rob, Bob, Bobby, etc.  If you have a middle name on your passport, don't leave it out in the katakana version.

It's perfectly fine to use katakana that isn't a direct transliteration of your passport name, as long as the passport name is also present in romaji. I always used マイク for ふりがな over ローマ字 Michael without issue. It can cause confusion if you only write the kana though, especially since many Japanese people I've met had no idea that Mike was short for Michael.

Last edited by Jarvik7 (2009 March 31, 1:33 pm)

snallygaster wrote:

Jarvik7 wrote:

snallygaster wrote:

Actually I think you register in romaji.  For those cases where you have to supply a kana reading, do a direct transliteration of whatever name is on your passport.  Avoid trying to use any name that doesn't clearly match the official romaji version -- even if you normally go by a different name.  If the name on your passport is Robert, don't write a katakana version of Rob, Bob, Bobby, etc.  If you have a middle name on your passport, don't leave it out in the katakana version.

It's perfectly fine to use katakana that isn't a direct transliteration of your passport name, as long as the passport name is also present in romaji. I always used マイク for ふりがな over ローマ字 Michael without issue. It can cause confusion if you only write the kana though, especially since many Japanese people I've met had no idea that Mike was short for Michael.

Okay, fair enough.  Personally, when I was new to Japan, I had a couple of forms returned to me with the explanation that the furigana "wasn't the same name" as the romaji.  I started using a more direct transliteration after that; I guess I just had some bad luck those first few months.

I managed to open a bank account & cellphone contract as マイク, so I guess you might have just had some particularly anal people.

Codexus wrote:

マルク

I could also go with the transcription of the American-style pronunciation マーク which is more common but it makes more sense to be closer to how my name is pronounced in my native language.

Whoa, didn't know there were so many Marks here...  I choose マルク when I first started learning Japanese, because my name has a R in it and I ostensibly wanted them to pronounce it, dammit   But I'm west-coast American, so the R is pretty subtle... and when I traveled Japan, it really grated on me every time they emphasized the ル.  Something like "mah-RU-ku" (and no silent u).  Now I've switched to マーク and they pronounce it "mah-k" (with a silent u).  About as close as you can get.

Anyway, the moral I found is this: It's your name, but their language.  If you want your name in katakana, then find a native speaker, have them listen very carefully to your pronunciation, and ask them to write it down in such a way that a native speaker seeing it for the first will get close with the pronunciation.  Then run it by some other native speakers and see if they pronounce it the same way (and see how you feel about their pronunciation).  Don't try to guess how katakana *should* be pronounced, because you'll inevitably be wrong.

I've always seen my name, Heather, written as へザー. I quite fancy the way it looks, but I wonder how close that actually is. Would Japanese people really call me Hezaa and not something closer to Heather?

I used to write my last name, Coleman, as コレモン (around the first year of me learning the language) but my college professor said it made her think of Pokemon and changed it to コールマン, which I now think is more accurate. ^^