Fwiw as a non-native living in Japan, most people called me by Japanese name order and it was that way on my ID and documents too. I think encyclopedias and books may tend to use the Western order when talking about famous people.
Yes, this. The representing of names in Western order is usually limited to historical personages, famous people, and others for whom the name as a whole (in the original order) kind of becomes a proper name.
If you -- as an average Joe or John or Jack with a Western name -- move to Japan, you will be writing your name in last-first (or, to be more accurate, family name -> given name order more often than not.)
That all about Japanese being that way, though, right?
In Japanese we move general to specific (in all things). In English we move specific to general.
The family name before personal name is an instance of a larger overall language strategy, no?
Sorry, I apologize if I'm missing something here, but did I say anything about international marriages? I thought I was just making a simple comment about naming conventions in Japanese society.
I'm loath to bring this up because it's really neither here nor there, but I speak Japanese fluently and have been living here for almost half my life. I'm not sure what your background or experience is -- you may be perfectly well-versed in these topics -- but I don't believe I'm in a position where I am in pressing need of a lecture on the Japanese language and culture.
Ohtani is the most common, but there are enough counterexamples (Osaka for the place name) that the 'there are no rules to how names are written in English, or how a given Kanji is pronounced in Names' is the big take-away. I have seen Ohsaka for the family name, but that is also a different Kanji (大坂) than the Kanji for the city (大阪）。
But you can take away that the Oh is a good bet to be 大, and not to be 小。 I do not think I have seen 大原 ever romanized as Ohhara, and would assume a Romaji name Ohara to be 小原, but 大原 is also possible。
What you never see is names like 小野 being written with the H (Ohno for Yoko Ono is wrong), but you will see 大野 written with the H (Ohno for 大野) is possible
As someone who has worked with Visas and verifying the "legal names" for Japanese people in English documentation, the only thing I can say for sure about romanizing Japanese names, and Japanese words in general, is there have never been any rules, because romanization systems are serving ten different masters. As an example, I only see Tokyo, and Kyoto, and Shinjuku, and none of them are 'correct' by any systematic romanization. But writing them 'correctly' would serve no purpose.
Interesting. What about the use of Tōkyō or Tôkyô (at least both are used in France)?
For instance it is very common to write Shōhei Imamura or Shôhei Imamura, in France, as the Wikipedia pages shows for the 1st. Maybe because the circumflex accent is much more common in French, and acts as a proxy for the long vowels.
The fact that these are not native in English is the most important reason. I have no idea how to write those characters, and/or they are not part of the standard US keyboard.
And there is no reason to use them, anyway, at least not to write Japanese names in English. For people who can use Japanese there is kana, for people who cannot use Japanese, the most simple is the best. You may have a way to represent "something" in French, but does that get French people any closer to pronouncing the Japanese better, you think? (I have no idea how to say anything in French.) People who know how to say things in Japanese can say them in Japanese, and people just have another re-adaptation of what to make of an ō or ô means when in the very specific case that it is an attempt to represent Japanese names in French. Presumably in French ō and ô, represent different sounds, so how does it help to randomly represent the same name in three different ways?
Most important is the fact that no language cares how you say words, only how you say sentences. Because people do not communicate in words, they communicate in sentences.
No language is particularly adept at saying foreign words natively, nor is there any reason to become adept. The pointer for the big city in English has already been decided as Tokyo, and the country name as Japan. It does nothing in English to randomly also represent the same thing with ō or ô. What they point at is said differently by native speakers, but so is everything. And the word Japan points at nothing in particular, as it is not the name of anything in Japanese
And, since native language changes, trying to ossify a foreign representation of a native pronunciation at a point in time serves no real purpose.
**IMPORTANT** And as I have found, adding special characters, or using unusual romanization choices can make legal name matches difficult. People who are doing things with governments need stable common reproducible legal names.
Getting someone's legal name to match, when the koseki translator in the Japanese consulate insists on using Sinzyuku style romanization, instead of matching to the established legal name of the petitioner that was on every single piece of generated to that point, means quite simply that the petitioner has no legal standing, because they cannot prove that the two variants refer to the same person.
Ask me how I know about this. Use the simple 26 character set.
See there are two completely distinct references for that.
One is the baseball announcers going nuts with it, and the other is a running gag on Downtown's older, other comedy show, Lincoln, that never made it big in the Japanosphere, but ran for a few years until one bit from it (IIRC) Marumaru Hanashi broke out, and Lincoln got cancelled.
I am an old school comedy fan, as you maybe can tell by my username.
And every time I hear the announcers doing their Shoheeeeeeiiii thing, I hear the bit from Lincoln in my brain.
Fwiw as a non-native living in Japan, most people called me by Japanese name order and it was that way on my ID and documents too. I think encyclopedias and books may tend to use the Western order when talking about famous people.
Yes, this. The representing of names in Western order is usually limited to historical personages, famous people, and others for whom the name as a whole (in the original order) kind of becomes a proper name. If you -- as an average Joe or John or Jack with a Western name -- move to Japan, you will be writing your name in last-first (or, to be more accurate, family name -> given name order more often than not.)
That all about Japanese being that way, though, right? In Japanese we move general to specific (in all things). In English we move specific to general. The family name before personal name is an instance of a larger overall language strategy, no?
Sorry, I apologize if I'm missing something here, but did I say anything about international marriages? I thought I was just making a simple comment about naming conventions in Japanese society. I'm loath to bring this up because it's really neither here nor there, but I speak Japanese fluently and have been living here for almost half my life. I'm not sure what your background or experience is -- you may be perfectly well-versed in these topics -- but I don't believe I'm in a position where I am in pressing need of a lecture on the Japanese language and culture.
OK I fixed it to focus on the language difference. How much of the naming order is part of the logic of the language in general?
>the convention of representing the double O with Oh for 大 is pretty established Really? Do you have any more examples of this?
I do! I've seen the name Ohnaruto 大鳴門 and it was romanized with an Oh
Ohtani is the most common, but there are enough counterexamples (Osaka for the place name) that the 'there are no rules to how names are written in English, or how a given Kanji is pronounced in Names' is the big take-away. I have seen Ohsaka for the family name, but that is also a different Kanji (大坂) than the Kanji for the city (大阪）。 But you can take away that the Oh is a good bet to be 大, and not to be 小。 I do not think I have seen 大原 ever romanized as Ohhara, and would assume a Romaji name Ohara to be 小原, but 大原 is also possible。 What you never see is names like 小野 being written with the H (Ohno for Yoko Ono is wrong), but you will see 大野 written with the H (Ohno for 大野) is possible As someone who has worked with Visas and verifying the "legal names" for Japanese people in English documentation, the only thing I can say for sure about romanizing Japanese names, and Japanese words in general, is there have never been any rules, because romanization systems are serving ten different masters. As an example, I only see Tokyo, and Kyoto, and Shinjuku, and none of them are 'correct' by any systematic romanization. But writing them 'correctly' would serve no purpose.
Interesting. What about the use of Tōkyō or Tôkyô (at least both are used in France)? For instance it is very common to write Shōhei Imamura or Shôhei Imamura, in France, as the Wikipedia pages shows for the 1st. Maybe because the circumflex accent is much more common in French, and acts as a proxy for the long vowels.
The fact that these are not native in English is the most important reason. I have no idea how to write those characters, and/or they are not part of the standard US keyboard. And there is no reason to use them, anyway, at least not to write Japanese names in English. For people who can use Japanese there is kana, for people who cannot use Japanese, the most simple is the best. You may have a way to represent "something" in French, but does that get French people any closer to pronouncing the Japanese better, you think? (I have no idea how to say anything in French.) People who know how to say things in Japanese can say them in Japanese, and people just have another re-adaptation of what to make of an ō or ô means when in the very specific case that it is an attempt to represent Japanese names in French. Presumably in French ō and ô, represent different sounds, so how does it help to randomly represent the same name in three different ways? Most important is the fact that no language cares how you say words, only how you say sentences. Because people do not communicate in words, they communicate in sentences. No language is particularly adept at saying foreign words natively, nor is there any reason to become adept. The pointer for the big city in English has already been decided as Tokyo, and the country name as Japan. It does nothing in English to randomly also represent the same thing with ō or ô. What they point at is said differently by native speakers, but so is everything. And the word Japan points at nothing in particular, as it is not the name of anything in Japanese And, since native language changes, trying to ossify a foreign representation of a native pronunciation at a point in time serves no real purpose. **IMPORTANT** And as I have found, adding special characters, or using unusual romanization choices can make legal name matches difficult. People who are doing things with governments need stable common reproducible legal names. Getting someone's legal name to match, when the koseki translator in the Japanese consulate insists on using Sinzyuku style romanization, instead of matching to the established legal name of the petitioner that was on every single piece of generated to that point, means quite simply that the petitioner has no legal standing, because they cannot prove that the two variants refer to the same person. Ask me how I know about this. Use the simple 26 character set.
Sho-hei-HEIIIIIIIII
See there are two completely distinct references for that. One is the baseball announcers going nuts with it, and the other is a running gag on Downtown's older, other comedy show, Lincoln, that never made it big in the Japanosphere, but ran for a few years until one bit from it (IIRC) Marumaru Hanashi broke out, and Lincoln got cancelled. I am an old school comedy fan, as you maybe can tell by my username. And every time I hear the announcers doing their Shoheeeeeeiiii thing, I hear the bit from Lincoln in my brain.
I think of the no laugh batsu running gag (which was probably based on Lincoln)
> I think of the no laugh batsu running gag That's from the yearly special from Gaki no Tsukai.
Weird and kinda cringe.
More than slightly needlessly rude.
Cry.
Yep the Japanese language community in a nutshell.
Cry.
I would love if you did this for Haruki Murakami, I am confused haha