Hi everyone. I am the developer of JP Name, a small iOS app for generating and exploring Japanese names.
I built it around kanji, kana, romaji, meanings, and cultural nuance, because name ideas are often more interesting when you can compare both the reading and the meaning behind the kanji.
It may be useful for:
Japanese learners who are curious about name readings
writers creating Japanese characters
people interested in how kanji choices change the feeling of a name
This is not meant to replace dictionaries or native judgement, but to make exploration faster and more structured.
App Store:
I would appreciate feedback, especially around kanji explanations and naturalness.
Adding a launch-week note here because I am using this thread to collect what I learn while improving JP Name. The current area I am focusing on is name nuance: how a reading changes when the kanji changes, and how a name can feel softer, sharper, more modern, or more old-fashioned even before you look at the full meaning.
For learners, this is the part I find hardest to express clearly without making the app sound like a dictionary. If anyone has resources or examples about given-name / surname nuance that helped you, I would appreciate them. I want the explanations in the app to stay useful and humble rather than overconfident.