Japanese girls names?

[AmandaHE]

Hello... been really struggling to make the short list for our girl due in a few weeks. With a few ideas I've been worried are either too overused or a couple that are really rare (dad was born in Kenya so we have a few African names we're considering) we've just had an odd twist to the day. My husband has been sat at his nanas death bed this weekend - she was adopted and we've never known where she was from...but have known she didn't look totally English. The family have managed to dig out info while she's been so poorly and we have found out today that her father was a Jananese man. Its amazing to finally know what that streak of heritage is that we couldn't ever place and I'm really keen to see if there are any pretty names that we could use knowing this... but I'm unfamiliar with most of the names I've just googled and don't know how to say them properly! (after 5 mins of research!) Like Emiko a lot (but I once met a really nice one so dont have any other association other than that)

Hena is pretty.

So you'll have a Holly and another girl with a Japanese name? Because their great grandmother was half Japanese, which makes them at best 1/16th Japanese? Sorry but I think you need to consider this very carefully. She'll be answering questions for the rest of her life. I say this as someone with a very unusual name (foreign parents) but who looks and sounds very English. The juxtaposition between having your DD1 with a very English name and then one with a Japanese one may just look odd. Maybe honour the heritage with a middle name?

Thank you - and it is all just research and food for thought at the moment. We're not a 'typically english' family, by looks, and there are other siblings with meanings and stories behind their names too... so she wouldn't be alone- not that I would choose something totally impossible to pronounce and not phonetic in english (I don't think!) For us, its the significance of finding this out just before she was born - as oppose to it making up a huge part of her heritage... as the others have reasons for their name relating to things going on in our lives when we were expecting them... and they've always enjoyed those reasons and stories. But the use of the syllables and not wanting to make a huge mistake if it were to be used in symbols is certainly something I would be really careful with! I've not studied Japanese but worked a bit with ancient Hebrew and know you can make a big mistake very easily when you don't know what you're doing!