Japanese Baby Names for Boys and Girls

Related Resources • All About Japanese Names • Japanese Baby Names • Trends in Japanese Baby Names • The Meanings of Japanese Names  Elsewhere on the Web • Kanji Names Project

I have listed both traditional and modern names. If you simply want to look through the hundreds of Japanese names, try the link on the bottom of the page. If you are willing to know a little bit about the meaning of Japanese names, please continue reading. 

People often ask what a Japanese name means. As for the meaning, Japanese names are not as simple as English names. Japanese names are usually written in kanji. Each kanji character has its own meaning. When the parents name a child, they chose kanji characters for it. Since there are thousands of kanji to choose from, even the same name can be written in many different kanji combinations. Depending on which characters are used, the meanings differ. Therefore it is hard to know what characters are used for a name and what the meaning of a name is just by its pronunciation. 

For example, "Keiko" is quite a common female name, but there are more than 70 kanji variations. Click here to see some of the common kanji combinations used for "Keiko."

Another example is the popular girl's name, "Ai." The most common choice for the kanji character for "Ai" would be the character for "love." The variety of characters is not as wide as those used for "Keiko", but there are still several different ways to write "Ai", including the character for "indigo blue." Click here to see some of the examples.

Since the combinations of kanji characters used for a name are many, I have not included all the kanji and their meanings. 

To learn more about Japanese names, click here. 

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