Hey, random question before I head to bed. I’ve been thinking about how I should introduce myself in Japanese, and how my name would be pronounced. My name is Sanne (which is Dutch), so my first thought was that I could write that as サネ. However, the internet seems to think that I should use サン. I don’t mind the name change in itself, but it seems pretty awkward if people would address me as サンさん.
Does that sound normal to you, or can I stick to サネ?
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How’s your name pronounced in Dutch? In particular, is the final ‘e’ silent or not?
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How is it pronounced? I don’t know Dutch, so I’m not gonna pretend to know how you pronounce your name. Katakana for names goes for as closely matching the sound as possible. I’d say my username here would probably be ミス・ダッガー or something very similar to that (I haven’t really looked into it).
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Yeah, I was hoping the generators etc were going off of an english/american pronunciation in which the ‘e’ might be silent? It’s ‘sa’ as in ‘salt’ and ‘nne’ as in… ‘nugget’ i guess haha. The second part would be a bit warped with ネ but that’s not so bad
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If it’s pronounced like in this video then I would almost recommend サナ or something similar. Internet translators for katakana translate my name “Austin” as アスティン but I spell it オースティン based on the official Japanese spelling of “Australia” as オーストラリア
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The way I understand that is more a na sound for the ‘nne’, more so than ne for sure. Since ね is kinda more like negate or some word like that. So I agree with @AllieKatte that サナ would be a likelier candidate. But honestly, you can decide yourself what you think fits best.
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Yeah just FYI, you can spell your name however you want. It’s completely up to you (maybe it has to at least somewhat resemble your legal name but that’s up for interpretation)
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As an aside, さん isn’t so ridiculous of name that no Japanese person would imagine it.
Take the (admittedly) キラキラ名前 of 太陽. You have the kanji meaning “Sun”, which would typically be read as たいよう when it’s a real word, but the given reading here is supposed to sound like the English “Sun.” You can find this on Japanese baby name sites. I don’t know if anyone has given their kid a name like this, but the fact that it would even be suggested means that as a foreign name サン wouldn’t be that shocking to people.
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Oh that’s interesting, I hadn’t thought of that! I might use that instead…
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I suppose people just do whatever they want when it comes to names haha. Kind of cool that you can use kanji like that though!
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Also keep in mind that if people already call you by your first name (I assume) the suffix often is turned into ちゃん/たん and somesuch making it less grating than さんさん ^^ (thinking about it I do like that sound though (and the meaning of the word)). Not so close people will normally call you by your last name.
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I found two Wikipedia pages for Dutch people named Sanne that actually have Japanese versions. In both of those cases, サンネ was used. So that seems to be an option apparently.
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ダガー seems to be common, double letters don’t always work in Japanese
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So when it comes to foreign names, the person just has some liberty to decide how they want it spelled/spoken in Japanese (I’m guessing as long as it satisfies the goal of making it sound as close as the native pronunciation as possible)? I’ve found what seems to be a common/'standard" spelling of my English first name in Katakana, but obviously no such thing exists for my Slovak surname so I guess I’d have no choice but to wing it, lol.
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That sounds like サヌ to me.
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You don’t have to reveal what your name is, but I would be a bit surprised if there isn’t something you can base the decision on already. People with similar names, or names using similar sounds, who are famous enough that they’ve been referred to by katakana names in Japanese.
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You need not worry, you will be “外人さん” like the rest of us.
/s, but actually kind of serious.
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Like others have said, spell/pronounce it however you want. It’s a name, something that people call you, and only you ultimately get to decide what you want to be referred to as.
Do サン、サネ、サンネ、サナ、ジョジョ、whatever you want. What matters is that you are comfortable with it.
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Your name is printed on residency cards in English as so:
If you were ever going to try and become a naturalized citizen you would probably need to adopt a legitimate Japanese name, but for most people there isn’t any official katakana spelling or anything you just make it up.
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hahah i went digging in jisho and the wikipedia for names in japanese wiki articles as well before seeing your post…teach me to not finish reading the comments…
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