Japanese names that are good in English

[MamaJapan]

Good morning,

I am 32 weeks pregnant with my first baby, we do not know if it is a boy or a girl. My husband and I are Japanese and living in Japan but in June we move to England for my husbands job. We will live there for 2 years to begin with and then my husband can renew his contract every one year.

We wish to name our child a Japanese name that is good in English.

Can you tell me if these names are good and easy to pronounce or any problems you think there might be.

Girls:

Koharu
Haruka
Sakura
Ayaka
Misaki
Fuka
Natsuki
Ichika

Boys:
Haruto
Haruki
Riku
Takumi
Shota
Tatsuki
Itsuki

Please accept my gratitude in advance

I would advise against Fuka. The others are all lovely and I think they’re easy to pronounce too.

Fuka would be difficult, Mai is nice

I would also advise against Fuka - it sounds similar to a profanity in English. Otherwise I think they are all lovely names.

Not Fula

*not Fuka

I would also miss Misake

Sounds like a northerner saying my sake (drink)

I would go for Natsuki as she could use Nat for short which is a common English nickname

Of the boy names, Riku would be easiest I think and could use Rick if he wanted.

Gorgeous names.

I'd echo the others and steer clear of Fuka because of its similarity to 'fuck'. I can't see any issues with any of the other names and I particularly like Sakura and Haruto

Congratulations!

Agree that Fuka would not work. All the others are nice. I personally like Shota, Haruki and Sakura.

If you happen to like Naomi or Hana these are also popular names here. However most people are quite open to names from other languages.

Congratulations on your baby and good luck with the move!

I would say all the names except (Fuka - could be misread as a swear word) are lovely. The only problem you might have is people pronouncing names with the wrong intonation. English people might say “Sa-KUUU-ra” instead of “Sa-ku-ra” or “Na-TSOO-ki” instead of “Na-tsu-ki”. Apart from that, I don’t think there would be any problem with pronunciation

Not Fuka…. the rest are fine.

Sakura is lovely - does it mean cherry blossom?

I love Sakura - is it the name of the cherry blossom? Which is so beautiful. My sister had a lovely Japanese school friend (in the UK) named Sakurako.

Definitely not Fuka, too close to a swear word.
I would probably leave Shota too, as being too close to ‘shot’ in English which is not very nice.
The other names on your list are beautiful though.

I love Koharu. What is its meaning, please?

Girls:

Koharu [late summer]
Haruka [distant spring]
Sakura [cherry blossom]
Ayaka [coloured flower]
Misaki [new grown flower]
Fuka [flowers and wind]
Natsuki [bright moon]
Ichika [love]

Boys:
Haruto [spring]
Haruki [spring wood]
Riku [land]
Takumi [sea]
Shota [soar, glide]
Tatsuki [birth]
Itsuki [timber tree]

I know an Ayaka and no one struggles. I love Sakura.

Haruki may be more familiar because of the association with Haruki Murakami.

I like Sakura for a girl. Easy to remember. I noticed you don't have any girls names listed which end in 'ko'. I think Miko, Kiko would be easy and sound sweet.

I love Kiko type names but I remember someone saying that they're considered dreadfully old fashioned in Japan.

Not Fuka. Some people will see Fuck-a

Shota is too close to the word Shit

I think that "tsu" is a hard sound to pronounce for English speakers. Natsuki will be pronounced Nat-suki because there's no "tsu" in English.

Such nice names, I can't pick a favorite! None of them are known English names, but all will work perfectly well in English, apart from Fuka (which sounds like fucker which is terrible!)

Misaki might shorten to Miss, which could be annoying.

I love Japanese names. I think Shota works less well in the UK.

My friend is called fumiko or fumi for short

OP I don’t know whether you’re aware but it’s very common in Britain for people’s names to be shortened or altered slightly, especially children’s.
It often happens at school, by their friends, and it’s fine, is considered friendly and even affectionate.
So for example Haruto and Haruki could well be called Hari, and Riku could be shortened to Rik. These names are nice and even quite cool.
And I think all your names, apart from Fuka, will be lovely. But Fuka would cause problems for them.
Your English is already very good, so I apologise if you already know about our habit of shortening names (“nicknames”)
I hope the move goes well and that you and your family will be happy here.
Please do come back to Mumsnet for any more information you might need, or just for a chat.

Many thanks for all of your wonderful comments.

@AuntieOxident I have learnt to speak English from a very small child. That is a good thing to think about names being shortened, that is not something we do much here.