Japan to limit glitzy names
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Japan sets rules on name readings to curb flashy 'kirakira names'
The Mainichi Japan (May 25, 2025)
TOKYO (Kyodo) — Japan will impose rules on Monday on how children's names in Chinese characters are pronounced, amid growing concern over what are known as "kirakira names" — flashy or unusual readings that have stirred debate.
The move is part of the enforcement of a revised law requiring all names in the national family registry to include phonetic readings, which will effectively ban interpretations considered too disconnected from the characters used.
Under the legislation, only widely accepted readings will be allowed. Parents can no longer give names readings unrelated to the meaning or standard pronunciation — a practice that has caused confusion in schools, hospitals and public services.
A little bit more about what "kirakira" means.
It's an onomatopoeia word
kirakira キラキラ / きらきら: "sparkling; glittering; gleaming; glowing; glinting; glistening; twinkling;flashing; lustrous brilliant; scintillating".
Kira kira name (キラキラネーム, kira kira nēmu, lit. 'sparkling name') is a term for a modern Japanese given name that has an atypical pronunciation or meaning. Common characteristics of these names include unorthodox readings for kanji, pop culture references, or the use of foreign words.
Description
Names with one or more of these characteristics have been described as kira kira names:
- Unorthodox kanji readings: Kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese writing) often have typical pronunciations. In kira kira names, kanji like 月, typically read as tsuki and meaning "moon", can be pronounced as raito, a Japanese pronunciation of the English word "light".
- Pop culture references: References to media such as anime, manga, or video games. For example, naming children after Nausicaä, from the 1984 animated film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
- Foreign words and sounds: Incorporation of non-Japanese words, or the use of katakana (often used for foreign words) in names.
- Unorthodox or taboo names: Names such as 王子様; Ōji-sama; lit. 'prince', naming children after objects, naming children after taboo concepts such as 悪魔; akuma; lit. 'devil'.
The Japanese government may enact legislation against kirakira given names and have a fair chance to enforce it, because one has to present documents (passport, birth certificate, deeds, etc.) to the government for inspection from time to time. However, it would be impossible to enforce a kirakira ban on kanji readings for the unrestricted corpus of kanji, because people can privately assign any reading they wish to any kanji they choose, and they do.
As June Teufel Dreyer, who called The Mainichi article to my attention, comments: in the US, the wave of celebrity parents giving their hapless offspring kirakira names like “North” and “Strawberry” seems to have abated.
Elon Musk's youngest child is named Tau Techno Mechanicus and has the nickname Tau. This reminds me of the late lamented "Haj" Ross and my own grandson, Leodaniel Solirein (don't ask me).
One of the most distinguished living Sinologists is W. South Coblin (b.1944). I've never heard him referred to as "Weldon", which is his actual given first name. I don't know how he got the name "Weldon", nor do I know the story of how he got the middle name "South" (I think he told me once, though I seem to have forgotten how it came about), but he surely prefers "South" over "Weldon" ("from the spring hill" or '"hill near a spring"). Maybe his ancestors came from a place south of "Hill Spring" in Northamptonshire, England.
Selected readings
- "Words in Mandarin: twin kle twin kle lit tle star" (8/14/12
- "Taiwan's gold medalist with an unusual name" (7/29/21)
- "'Farcical names'" (4/3/15)
- "Whimsical surnames" (3/16/24)
- "Name games in Hong Kong" (3/15/16)
Juanma Barranquero said,
May 28, 2025 @ 3:02 pm
Well, the first commissionaer of baseball was called Kenesaw Mountain Landis, "Kenesaw Mountain" being his given name.
Steve B said,
May 28, 2025 @ 3:52 pm
> …naming children after taboo concepts such as 悪魔; akuma; lit. 'devil'.
> As June *Teufel* Dreyer, who called The Mainichi article to my attention…
Amusing accident or intentional?
John Swindle said,
May 28, 2025 @ 6:05 pm
Are all children born in Japan to Japanese parents given kanji names? Do birth records show both the kanji and the chosen pronunciation?
Brian W. Ogilvie said,
May 28, 2025 @ 6:47 pm
Was “Weldon” Coblin’s mother’s maiden name? There were some anglophone immigrants to North America who brought that custom with them. The Canadian novelist Robertson Davies is an example, and the custom is a plot point in his novel “Fifth Business.”
Chester Draws said,
May 28, 2025 @ 7:25 pm
in the US, the wave of celebrity parents giving their hapless offspring kirakira names like “North” and “Strawberry” seems to have abated.
Anecdotally, it was ordinary people in New Zealand, and it too has abated. My school has far fewer students named after cars (Chevvy), liquor (Tennessee), Rappers (RKelly) etc than it used to.
It still remains very strong in the Polynesian community though. Children are routinely called things like Miracle or Apollo.
The winners in the odd names though are the Filipinos.
Duncan said,
May 29, 2025 @ 2:53 am
I spent six years pre-teen as a missionary kid at a mission school in Kenya, where unusual object-based names were only the tip of the iceberg.
The real problem for us "Europeans" (anyone from overseas who spoke English, regardless of origin) wasn't /unusual/ names but the /number/ of names, with people customarily taking another name any time something significant happened.
So they'd have their given name (I had a friend whose primary given name translated "banana", or rather, a kind of cooking banana not one you'd just peel and eat, because he was born under a banana tree), their family name, often a name taken at circumcision (FGM/MGM), a name when they started school from home, another when they entered boarding school (typically secondary), a chosen Christian name taken at baptism (and sometimes another taken at decision), another graduating secondary school, another if they got malaria bad and almost died but survived, another getting married, another if someone close died or survived malaria or snake-bite… or "survived" but went mad from the fever cooking their brain… (not unusual, unfortunately…). An accumulation of perhaps a dozen names by adulthood wasn't unusual, tho at the secondary school level when we first got them it was probably more like half to 2/3 dozen.
The problem, however, was that with so many names to choose from, the name they'd give you on any given day often depended on how they felt (say they were particularly grieving that friend that died that they took a name in honor of…), so you might have them in your classroom or work assignment a month or two and still be getting names you'd not heard before. Just /try/ keeping names and faces straight when the name varies by the day!
Of course we had ID numbers for stuff like grades, work/tuition/bookstore accounting, etc, but no, you can't really refer to students in the classroom by ID number!
Coby said,
May 29, 2025 @ 8:54 am
South Americans (especially Brazilians) have a predilection for male forenames that sound like English surnames. Sometimes they are actual names — Nelson is very popular — but usually they are made up.
Here are the names of some Brazilian players in the English Premier League: Joelinton, Richarlison, Ederson, Allison…
There is also the Urugayan Edinson Cavani, the Colombian Davinson Sánchez (no longer in the EPL).
David Marjanović said,
May 29, 2025 @ 1:54 pm
But that, I'm sure, is the general English (and especially American) practice of repurposing last names as given names. Has that caught on in Japan?
Josh R. said,
May 29, 2025 @ 7:16 pm
John Swindle asked,
"Are all children born in Japan to Japanese parents given kanji names? Do birth records show both the kanji and the chosen pronunciation?"
No, kanji is not required, and some people have names that use either of the Japanese syllabaries (hiragana or katakana).
The birth reporting form (出生届 shusshou-todoke), like all official forms, includes a field above the name field for writing down the pronunciation of the kanji. It is required to fill out the pronunciation field.
Some bonus info: the form has only two distinct fields for names: the family name and the given name. There is field for Western style middle names. Had I entered my daughter's first and middle names in the given name field, they would have been forever mashed together as one given name by the Japanese bureaucracy.
Thankfully, the U.S. State Department had a wonderful and useful service. When reporting the birth to the U.S. Embassy (or consulate), there was a form for noting that while the baby was born with such-and-such name in Japan, a different name would be used for the report of birth and passport application. So my daughter has only her Japanese name on her shusshou-todoke, which becomes her middle name on her consular report of birth. Best of both worlds.