Hello everyone!
A friend of mine is a writer and asked me for some feedback on some male Japanese names for a character. My friend doesn’t really speak Japanese much beyond the basics, and even though I’m N2 I don’t have a lot of intuition about naming conventions.
The idea is that my friend is from Kentucky from a farm called Fox Run (as in “creek”) and wants to pay homage to this in the name of a character. He mentioned using things to represent Kentucky as the bluegrass state and the use of river or fox in there somewhere. I guess even though his writing will be in English, he’d still like the kanji to work out. Shrug.
I figured I’d bounce some things off you guys. The family name seems easiest to do first, and I’ve had a couple of ideas:
-
青草 (あおくさ) - Seems like a natural enough choice. Hitting directly on “bluegrass” with this one. I’ve seen it in the names of places and stuff like that, but I’ve never met anyone with this as a name. I guess it could be possible though?
-
青原 (あおはら) - Another actual place, so it could be alright. In any case, I certainly find it more euphonious than 青草. Also considered 青ヶ原 (あおがはら) by analogy to the real forest 青木ヶ原 (あおきがはら).
-
狐川 (or 河 maybe?) (きつねかわ) - Seems creatively possible by analogy with the millions of other 川 names. Some people on the internet have seemed to use it as well. I’m not sure if 川 is even used for bodies of water smaller than a river like “creek,” but it doesn’t seem to be too big a point of contention.
For first names I’m pretty at a loss, since I’m terrible at reading unfamiliar ones even on a good day, but here are two I came up with off the top of my head.
-
狐太郎 (こたろう) - By analogy to the real name 小太郎 using the こ reading of 狐 which apparently exists in some uncommon words (not that I know any of those…) I have a feeling using 狐 this way will mostly come across with heavy オタク cringe though, but I don’t have the sensibility to tell. Also, this is the only male given name I know with こ in it, not こう sooooooo…
-
狐泉 (こせん) - Now, I don’t think こせん is a real Japanese name per se… but it exists at least in some other forms, I guess a good example of which is 弧線 (こせん). So I think the creativity of getting “fox” and “some kind of water feature” could outweigh the practicality of a real name. I don’t know anymore, I’m spitballing.
Thinking through all that, I kind of think 青原 狐泉 seems like an ok (ish) choice, but what do I know.
So, any kind of advice or suggestions you could give on these names or others you could think of is very appreciated! I think some of these are kind of crazy, but with more キラキラ names floating around these days it’s hard for me to tell what a native would be willing to accept or just trash on😂 The goal I guess is finding a creative name while cutting down on the イタい factor.
よろしくお願いいたします！