I saw a survey of popular Japanese names for 2008. The top 5 names for boys are, "Hiroto," "Ren," and occupying third, fourth and fifth spot (each version spelt with a different combination of kanji characters), "Yuuto". The top 5 names for girls are, "Aoi," "Yui," "Hina," "Rin" and "Yua". Since Japanese names are usually written in kanji (sometime in hiragana), even the same name can be written in many different ways. There are many cute sounding girls’ names today compared with the names of my generation. I found the name "Kokoa" at 17th in the rankings. It uses kanji characters, but it sounds like "cocoa". I never imagined "Kokoa" being used as a name, but I thought it is kind of cute.
Japanese translation
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Comments
The possibilities Japanese kanji give for names are really great! To me, it seems to be a strong way to express a parent’s hopes and good wishes for their children’s life because of the unique meanings of kanji. Here, most people know only of a few names what they actually mean or where they come from.
New word! 一般的に Thanks.
One of the problems with learning Japanese is that many teachers teach you how to write but they don’t teach you how to write well. So your translations are really helpful.
are the japanese names always written in kanji? i sometimes see some people, mostly actress, use katakana instead of kanji or hiragana. even, there’s an actress who has a name “ELENA” or “ERIKA”. how does she write her name in kanji? i’m so curious…
People who have non japanese names, usually write their names in katakana, which is another wirting system used by the japanese for foreign words. =]]
I would like to name my incoming baby with a japanese sounding one. They seem so cute.
@ Sweetmika: “ERIKA” is actually Sawajiri Erika. She writes the Erika part of her name in katakana. (沢尻 エリカ)