Japanese name if no Japanese heritage

[SpacePie]

I love the gentle sound of many Japanese names.

What names could pass in the UK without raising eyebrows at the fact that neither myself or my husband are Japanese.

I must admit it's studio Ghibli that inspires this love, but many don't seem to be pronounced how they're spelled:

Satsuki
Sôsuke
Arietty
Kiki

I am fairly sensible and wouldn't want to land a baby with an impossible to spell / pronounce name so I'm all ears to England friendly suggestions.

Lots of common British names have vulgar connotations in my culture, and I'm sure other more proximate cultures in Europe... Yours might too, but you might have blissfully led your life without finding out, for all you know. If you make that a factor your baby might as well be nameless

I don't think I'm being overly pernickety by not wanting my baby's name to also mean blowjob in Norwegian. Anyway, best to have all the background knowledge on a name and then make an informed decision.

Yeah as I said your baby's name probably already means blowjob in some language!

Maybe it's down to being multilingual from quite different cultures as well, I can think of many perfectly normal British names that would be hilarious in my other languages. I guess you can research all you want though

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Though from your list Arriety is not Japanese at all

And Kiki is more of a cutesy nickname type than a name in Japan (the only person I know who uses it uses it as her nickname in England as her name is Yukki) . It can actually have a negative meaning in Japanese of crisis (危機) or something to avoid (忌諱) depending on its Kanji

In the Kiki delivery film it is supposed to be a foreign non Japanese name

Of course

Some of them are lovely but I do think it's a bit Invite-Questions, so you have to be OK with many many questions about whether or not you have a question to Japan. Some people say ''can I use an Irish name if I'm not Irish'' but this is in a whole different league. Nobody is going to be questioning you to see if you have one Irish grandparent, nobody cares, but if you have a daughter with a Japanese name, that is going to be interesting and unusual. I do like the idea of Suki short for susannah.
Somebody upthread suggested Megumi and that's lovely too, does the name have to be Japanese, Magaly is a European name (and a saints name) so less culturally incongruous.

Don't do it my DD has a Chinese middle name because she has Chinese heritage . I still wouldn't give her a Chinese first name as she lives and was born in the UK. if you have no Japanese heritage I'm not sure why you would do it..

Is Naomi Japanese

I went with a name like this and my childs a teen now and I asked the other day if they get many comments about their name and they said no. Go for what you like op. My names French but I have no connection to France.

@xJoy When paired with 'Osaka' yes it is.

I can't think why you'd set yourselves and your child up for a future of raised eyebrows and prying questions, OP. It wouldn't just be a few people - it would be pretty much every setting you ever go where you'd have to explain it.

Yes. It's pronounced Na Oh Me

I know a Kiki but she's a dog

Absolutely agree. Same experience here. The most you get is... oh what a lovely unique name. We say thank you and move on.

I use weebo to mean someone who has no understanding of Asian culture other than being obsessed with anime or kpop. They are deeply frustrating people at times and I don't find the phrase racist at all (in fact I sometimes find the weebos more so with them picking and choosing parts of our culture to take as their own)

DDs middle name is Chihiro. Just because I love the name. She's a teenager now and she loves it.

Arrietty isn't Japanese

The sensible option would be to pick a name with Ki like Kiera or Kimberley and call her Kiki. You can do that with a lot of English names Rihanna (RiRi) Miriam (Mimi) etc

I agree with @Meifly on this one. Japanese names are absolutely beautiful, but using one with no connection to the Japan does smack of appropriation. People will just think her parents had a JCulture obsession.

I'm Japanese.

It reminds me of when people get tattoos with Japanese characters and have no idea what it means.

I also get incredibly frustrated when people insist their pronunciation of a Japanese name is correct.

Speaking from personal experience,
to anyone who does end up giving their child an ill advised Japanese or Asian name. Please PLEASE do not come up to Asian families at playgroups to try and make friends like you have some kind of bond. No I am not going to make my daughter play with little blonde Yumiko while you tell me how much you love bubble tea and melon pan 🙄

But people aren’t going to say anything negative to your face, are they?

I'm sure this is true but it's also in the Bible, the story of Ruth and Naomi...

So for that reason it's much less "look at me I love Ghibli films so much I named my kid after them!" than the other options on the thread :)

OP, I love Ghibli films so much that I've been to Japan twice to visit the Ghibli museum.

I wouldn't name my kid after any of the characters though, because it's only a whisker away from a Trekkie naming their son Spock. If you think that's fine then go for it, obviously!

As someone born and bred in Asia I'm personally fine with people liking parts of my culture, even if they get a lot of the details wrong. It's not like people liking French or English culture have written anthropological and sociological dissertations on those cultures either

That said, I think Asians born in the US or UK have more complicated feelings around this. The same people and society once extremely openly racist and mocking towards them are now fetishising their culture. So with this context I can understand it

I guess another problem is some people fetishising certain cultures like Japanese or Korean while considering others like Chinese inferior, not realising they are intertwined. And their Eurocentric perspective doesn't have awareness of common knowledge in Asia (though maybe not Japan), like a lot of horrific isues from how the Japanese gained dominance over these countries from colonisation/the Asian holocaust... But ah fuck it, Brits don't even know that their own crimes against humanity are why the formerly wealthy colonies in South Asia remain impoverished, so I find it easier to just excuse their ignorance 😂

I know others may not feel that way though, eg Chinese/Koreans feel strongly about the ongoing comfort women legacy from Japanese oppression, or there are memorials in Singapore for the racial massacres/genocide by the Japanese... So I do understand varying feelings on this subject

I'm embarrassed for them @littlefirecar! 🤣🤣

You can’t do this -well, obviously you can - but don’t. It’s inappropriate and possibly a bit offensive. It’s completely different to calling your child a French or Italian name.
There are lots of Western names that maybe have a similar feel - Amy, May, Sue, Fern, Joy, Alana, or you can double up on a letter from a traditional western name to make a nickname - Deedee, Cici, Lulu etc.