My last name, "Abe", is quite common in Japan. It is ranked as 23rd among a hundred thousand Japanese surnames . In North America, I am often called "Abe" like Abraham, but in Japanese it is pronounced as "a-be." There was the Prime Minister Abe a few years ago, though the kanji characters for his name were different from mine. I didn't like my last name much when I was young because it is too ordinary. However, I liked the fact that I was usually the first on the name list at school. (The Japanese alphabet order goes as "a, i, u, e, o, ka, ki, ku, ke, ko..., therefore unless there are names like "Aoki" or "Aihara," "Abe" would be the first. )
Japanese translation
Explore Japanese Language
©2012 About.com. All rights reserved.
A part of The New York Times Company.
Comments
umm. you are a japanese teacher ? i hope you can teach me online. if there is more than one kun-reading or more than one on-reading then which one do i use ?? i really want to know
Yes, she’s a Japanese teacher. If you want to learn about On and Kun reading, you can click on the Kanji links and there are articles on on and kun. If you need to know specific on and kun readings of a kanji you’re looking for, click on “Kanji Land”.
Hi! I wanted to e-mail you to make a suggestion. Unfortunately the link in your page to “e-mail me” doesn’t seems to work, you land in “http://japanese.about.com/?once=true&”.
Anyway, what I want to suggest is to include kanji (with furigana) to the Japanese Word of the Day newsletter. I signed up a week ago, and since I’ve been learning Japanese for a couple of years (or at least trying to!), I find words written only in romaji very odd.
Thank you!
Manuel
However, I liked the fact that I was usually the first on the name list at school.
There will probably be some situations where being first on a list is a little less than ideal….
My name was always the fisrt. For some reason there aren’t many names that start with “a” so for me (with my name starting with “ba…” it was always the first. And I hated it XD But now, I would be happy to have it as first and now it’s only 3rd
Happens ^-^
ps.: I want to thank you for the lessons online! They help me a lot
I am part Japanese my gramps tried to teach but I could never remember speaking only weapons like “Katana”, “Wakizashi”, “Naginata”, “Nodachi”, etc. So I need to learn badly.