A few years ago, I went to a fireworks festival somewhere near Tokyo. Around noon that day, my friends and I had to go to the viewing site and set up a mat… I found this odd because I hadn’t thought at that time that one could actually “reserve” a viewing area during a festival. (Turns out you can, and we did…) On the mat, instead of my friends’ last name of Suzuki, they had written the name Kitayama with packing tape. Suzuki was too common a name, and someone who claimed to be a Suzuki would take our spot. Why they would not claim to be a Kitayama… well that’s another story. But anyway, there are too many Suzukis in Japan. In fact, it is the second most common last name in Japan. The most common is Sato.
The most common male Japanese name is Hiroshi Sato. According to the character in my textbook (his name is Hiroshi Sato), he shares his name with more than 50,000 other males in Japan. He goes on to say that they could probably fill up Tokyo Dome with Hiroshi Satos. (It made me wonder if they’d ever held a Hiroshi Sato convention or something like that…) Hiroshi hasn’t been a popular name with kids of today though. The more traditional names have been neglected in favor of more trendy ones in recent years.
Every year, a survey of the year’s most popular baby names is made. Many Japanese tend to name their children after notable people that year or the previous year. According to this article on Asian Offbeat (I’ve been reading a lot of stuff on there lately… 🙂 ), the names for 2007 are Hiroto and Hina. The character used is 悠 (read as hisa, or yuu, which means eternity), which appears in the name of Prince Hisahito (悠仁).
Below are the Top 3 Names for Boys and Girls for three different eras. This list was taken from a Meiji Insurance Survey.
Boys Names
|
1927 |
1960 |
1996 |
1 |
昭二 Shouji |
浩 Hiroshi |
翔太 Shouta |
2 |
昭 Shou |
浩一 Hiroichi |
健太 Kenta |
3 |
和夫 Kazuo |
誠 Makoto |
大輝 Taiki |
Girls Names
|
1927 |
1960 |
1996 |
1 |
和子 Kazuko |
恵子 Keiko |
美咲 Misaki |
2 |
昭子 Shouko |
由美子 Yumiko |
彩 Aya |
3 |
久子 Hisako |
久美子 Kumiko |
明日香 Asuka |
All the girls lost their kos.
It’s one way to gauge whether the family is a traditional one or not, I heard. Though it may not always be the case, many of my friends with kos in their names always complain their parents are so unhip…
That is because the character for “ko” means child, and many girls who receive a name that ends in “ko” drop the “ko” upon adulthood.
Thanks for the comment, Hawkins!
I never knew that… but it’s very interesting. Do they change their names legally or just write it without the “ko”?
I know though that many of the younger parents use really difficult Kanji for their children’s names. Most of them names that are really unusual.
hi, im princess grace a. sano, just want to know my roots in
japan.my great grandfather is a japanese army who fought
the war here in the philippines..i wish u could help me go
through my roots in japan
I was wondering if anyone knew how I could get in touch with a old freind from high school. He came as an exchange student from Japan and spent his senior year in the U.S. I have the correct spelling of his name and the last I was told is that he lived in Nagoya but that was many years ago. I have already tried facebook and my space and had no luck. Any helpfull ideas would be appreciated.
Thanks
Jim
Hiroto and Rin are the top baby names in Japan
http://www.japansugoi.com/wordpress/the-top-10-baby-names-in-japan-2009/
What is one of Japan’s most popular names?
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