ANSTHRLD - Japanese name research

David Nesmith txpiper2001 at yahoo.com
Fri Nov 3 10:14:19 PST 2000


Kampai!

     My congratulations on a job well done.  It is
refreshing to read that someone else has taken the
time and effort to properly research and document
Japanese names.  18 years ago, I researched my name in
a similar manner.  Being a former herald (no such
thing as USED to be) I knew that you could not simply
submit the Romanasised spelling because it did not
convey the meaning.  I had purchased books on kanji
and therefore had a resource to check the meanings and
pronounciation of Japanese words.  I discovered that
many kanji could be pronounced several different ways.
 Also, that several different kanji could be
pronounced the same way.  (e.g.: the kanji for
military, fierce, etc. can be pronounced MU, BU or
TAKE.  The pronounciation TAKE could mean either the
afforementioned military or it could mean BAMBOO
depending on the individual kanji!)  What I did was to
come up with a basic sound and meaning for my name and
then I went to our local LIBRARY and found a book
entitled "Who's Who in Japanese History" (or something
like that)  It listed famous people in Japanese
history, gave their names, KANJI and the pertinent
dates for that individual.  In my case, it was a poet
of the early 1500's with the given name MORITAKE using
the kanji that conveyed the meaning I wanted.

     All this is very easy when you approach this as a
foreign language (which it is!)  True, it is a little
more complicated that names from western europe but
then again research is what we do.

     Again, congratulations on a job well done.  Keep
up the good work and remember this is for fun as well.

your humble servant,

Ld. Duncan Brodie MacCrimmon of Strathspey
(formally known as tono Ishikawa Moritake)

=====
David Nesmith - Piper
Bene Vivere + Optima Ultio
============================================================================
Go to http://lists.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.



More information about the Heralds mailing list