I’m only 36 days into my studies here, and while I believed I may eventually figure out the answer on my own, I feel that may not be the case with my current situation.
The other day I was listening to the FF7R ost on Spotify, and being a lifetime fan of Nobuo Uematsu (植松 伸夫), I saw his name in Kanji and realized I recognized most of the radicals and wanted to learn how and why his name is written the way it is. But this is where I got rather confused, specifically with his first name - 伸夫
Here on Wanikani, the first Kanji is “stretch,” pronounced の. Simple enough for a beginner like me. But the second part is the Kanji for “husband,” which is not quite pronounced ぶお, but rather ふう. I’m wondering why that is?
Another composer on that soundtrack is Mitsudo Suzuki (鈴木 光人), and I encountered the same situation, but to an even stronger extent. According to this site, the Kanji 光 (light) is pronounced numerous ways, but none of them come close to any part of Mitsudo’s name.
Wondering if anyone can shed some “light” on this one for me ありがとう!
Oh boy, you found one of the end bosses of learning Japanese. It’s such a big end boss, in fact, that even Japanese people have problems with Japanese names.
I think it is more のぶ + お regarding what each of the Kanji contribute to the name.
Additionally to the おんよみ and くんよみ, some Kanji have なのり readings if they are common in names. But even then you will stumble upon names where you have to know the reading to know the reading. Sometimes the same Kanji name can be read in different ways depending on the person.
So in the end you either know the Kanji name already, or you have to look it up on Wikipedia if it’s a well known person, or you have to simply ask. There’s really no rhyme or reason to it. The more names you know, the better you will get at guessing them, but like I said in the intro, even Japanese people can’t read other Japanese people’s name very often.
as above just to add; it’s extremely common in japanese when introductions take place to mention the kanji used in their names. that should tell you how complicated it is. takes the odd spellings of names in english to a new level in introductions/forms.
WaniKani teaches a handful name readings, but for the most part they don’t. Their objective is to get you started reading Japanese, and reading Japanese names is an advanced area, largely not needed on Japanese exams.
And just to be clear, some Japanese names have possible readings that are obvious to any Japanese person, but since the odds can be 50/50, they still wouldn’t be able to read it with absolute certainty.
In my experience last names tend to be a bit more predictable, mainly because they don’t change every generation and don’t follow trends. That said they also often use rare or archaic readings of the kanji. First names are just chaos.
Knowing enough basic words, and seeing several names for pattern may help guess the reading. Seeing the Kanji for the second time serves as a reminder, e.g. 伸びる / 伸ばす + 夫 / 男 (looking at Kanji meaning).
Not sure about 光人, but と is common for 人. The first part feels like perhaps 満ちる? The joining of syllables varies anyway.
Nonetheless, sometimes it’s difficult to see the etymology, the why, and it can make some Kanji name readings worth memorizing.
Several family names follow place names, though the same writing may be read different ways in different places.
Yah, if you go for kun’yomi, you’ll be right about 75% of the time. Mix in some nanori and it goes up to about 85-90%.
If you’re focused only on the top 100 most common family names, it’s even more predictable: the only names in that list which use on’yomi are the ones that have 藤 as the second kanji.
Every form (pen and paper or online) you fill out here in Japan you will see that Japanese need to enter their name twice. In kanji followed by hiragana (or sometimes katakana may be requested). Not having a Japanese name, I must write/enter my name using Latin/Roman alphabet. A couple of times I have encountered online forms that will only accept kanji/hiragana/katakana and have had to talk to someone to find a work around, like entering 英語名 in the field for name in kanji.
As a foreigner, your job is to listen to their name, nod, and accept it.
Names are just a beast that you will think you know and then you don’t.
Right now we’re seeing a generation of names entering the entertainment industry with wild readings and kanji to go with them. The government only recently put a stop to this but the next couple decades are gonna be wild. lol
ありがとう!