Great timing. My current VPN expires in a couple of days so I signed up to this one as it has better Linux support. Keep up the good videos by the way.
I saw an ID of this Vietnamese kid that is named Mai Quốc Khánh. Funny thing about his name is, his surname “Mai” can be understood as “tomorrow” and his given name “Quốc Khánh” means the National Independence Day. Vietnam Independence Day is on September 2nd and the kid is born on September 1st. So his name literally translates to “National Independence Day Tomorrow”. What’s even more hilarious is that this name sounds perfectly casual to Vietnamese unless we really think about it.
In vietnamese there's a LOT of names that sounds casual but will give you the "holy shit" moments when you try to break down each word's meaning. Take Uncle Ho's every names from every stage of his life for example. When he was born his name was Nguyễn 'Sinh Cung' means "born with reverence"; when he's mature his name was changed to "Nguyễn 'Tất Thành' means "everything will be ok"; when he travel abroad to find a way to save Vietnam, he changed his name to Nguyễn 'Ái Quốc' literally means "love my country" and when he went back home his name was Hồ 'Chí Minh' means "towards the light" (get it? "The light of communism") or "a bright ambition".
The author used a fictional name so that there would be no kids made fun of at school for having the same name as a murderer. Quite a nice gesture, but I'm sure someone has named their kid Light by now😂
I love that as soon as the "Princess Candy" name was mentioned, I laughed and joked to myself that her parents must be filipino. 2 seconds later: "it turns out her mom is from the Philippines" 😅
@@SamanthaWritesThingsas a german I really don’t understand why someone want to name their child after a thing. Depends where you are but they could also be rejected here in Germany. Most names like that will get rejected.
@Vanadium People in the past tend to name their child after things, places and jobs. Example: Penny (thing), Hunter (job), London (place). Lol but Princess Candy is something else. Where I'm from, attaching Queen to a name is becoming more common. Like Queensha, Queena, Queenda. Those parents think it's elegant but it's really just tacky.
@@idontcare7340 Haha, I am German. Basically all our sure names are things or stuff some did do as a job or derive from that. But your Name would not be 99,99% , a thing or job , etc. There are a few exceptions but those are more then one thing combined and really are nothing like a Prince, King , whatever.
When Shinzo Abe went against kira kira names, I thought he was just being a boomer, and then he picked fucking Pikachu as an example, and that immediately got me on his side.
Most names are from fictional characters anyway. One cannot deny pikachu importance in culture. Brace yourself when zoomer get kids . Kid named fortnite and amungous
There is nothing "boomer"-sh about it. In Brazil, naming your kid in such a way is absolutely illegal because parents would make jokes of their children's names or straight up insults put there. Naming your kid based off a fictional character is harmless compared to what some parents do. It's just very dumb and selfish people making a nuisance of themselves, like always.
I had this one elementary school student whose name was Rin, but the kanji in her name was for "Suzu" (bell), so she explained to me that her family gave her the name because "rin rin" (like ring ring) is the SOUND the bells make. 😄 It's actually kind of cute, but it's confusing as hell. Edit: Wow, thank you everyone for the likes. Also, there are many knowledgeable people as well as native speakers in the replies who explain the kanji and it looks like it's actually a very common name. Thanks for sharing with us. 🤗 I just want to point out that this happened about 7-8 years ago, and I was still new to kanji and how it's read. Now when I read other comments, this name doesn't seem like a kira-kira name, but I believe many people would agree that figuring out the pronunciation would be difficult, especially for beginners. 😅
Listen, I got into an argument with friends+girl-friends back in college (like 6 years ago) and I was trying to tell them, "Nah, there's totally a scene where Light explains that his name is written with the characters for moon," and for the life of me I couldn't find the clip, and nobody believed me, and they all told me I was stupid and his name was just "Light." When you used his name as an example of a sparkling name and pointed out that his name is spelled Moon, without warning, and reflexively, I let out a "THANK YOU!" -6 years later, at night, alone, very loudly.
I remember that scene! My dad was watching cable tv these days and I saw this scene on Toonami, I think it was episode 6? But I could be wrong. I didn't even know it was a kira-kira name, I only discovered that it existed when I watched this video lol
The funniest name I saw growing up was this Singaporean man whose name was Batman Bin Suparman. Where his first name was Batman, and his last name Bin Suparman meant Son of Suparman. Meaning that his Dad's names was Suparman and that it took at least two generations for the name to come about.
There's also James Bond in Indonesia. And there's a legendary name that goes viral because of what it meant. A guy by the name "Tuhan" went viral because of the meaning of the word. "Tuhan" means God in Indonesia. Imagine having "God" as your name.
imagine getting named devil, and when finally you could change your name the dad changes it to “bad” then you realize it still has devil inside the word
There's this manga that's called Tonikaku Kawaii. It's main character's name is 星空 that can be read as Hoshizora and translated as Starry Sky. But it's actually Nasa. Yes, because of the NASA
One of the most ridiculous name I’ve come across during my university years in Japan was 凹凸(テトリス) literally named Tetris. 凹凸 is an actual word though, it means concave convex and basically means unevenness.
Fun fact : Those two alphabet isn't kanji. My professor (who so expert on Kanji, even native teacher ask to him about Kanji LOL) insist to us It's part Kanji but not entirely kanji. The reason because those two words was made by Japanese. Not included on Chinese Hanzi. He even called it "Waji," since ot was made by Japanese LOL.
I was going say this. Japanese tragedeigh names. Or worse. It might be the equivalent of some parents here in the Philippines naming their daughter (I kid you not) Spaghetti.
As a Chinese, I am fascinated by some of these names and how the Japanese language can juxtapose Han characters with English loanwords. Most of the Kanji have the same meanings in Chinese like 天使 黃熊 宇宙, but it is amazing how Japanese can have so many readings. It is worth mentioning, 黃熊 / Puu probably hasn't aged well for political meme reasons. Haha.
Even for non-political reasons yellow bear wouldn't be good. Yellow has strong sexual connotations and it seems like you're implying something very unsavory about yourself if you adopt that name.
天使 (tenshi) and 宇宙 (uchū) are Wasei-kango (和製漢語), terms coined in Japan and later adopted and widely used by modern Chinese scholars in the Sinophone world. Hence, they share the same meaning.
Meanwhile while I understand that 'Reiwa' (令和) means "beautiful harmony" in Japanese, its _kanji_ translates into Chinese as the more grating phrase: " (to issue an) order/command (to achieve) harmony"
@@blueberryjackson7539 Meanwhile mainland China's PLA used to be led by an admiral called Wu Shengli (吴胜/吳勝利), whose name unfortunately sounds like the phrase "without victory"
Great video! I’m Japanese and in high school I had classmates named “seven (sebun)” and “eight (eito)”, which are semi-Kira Kira names. They sound pretty natural, so it doesn’t feel weird calling them in Japanese. Someone I know with a strong Kira Kira name would be my distant relative. His name is Human. This isn’t a typo, his name is literally human.
Funny how Eito, if he was in Brazil, people would think his name is Heitor, like from Composer Heitor Villa-Lôbos or the Trojan Prince that fought Brad Pit...Achilles. He'd pass as a Japanese-Brazilian quite easily, specially in São Paulo, where people have entire, normal japanese names as a surname and a normal Brazilian name as a given name. EX: Back in school, a Colleague of mine had the name Fernando Koichi Tsurukawa, and people thought Koichi was a surname.
I actually like 月 read as Luna and 宇宙 as Cosmo. There's at least a semblance of connection between the name and meaning. Whereas, names like 黄熊 read as puu is just insane.
Yeah, agreed! I feel like those are kinda natural extensions to kanji -- in a way, words already work like this, just with Chinese/Japanese readings instead of Romance ones
Philippines here. Family has a photography business. We do graduation portraits for schools so we go through a lot of kids' names. I used to work here, attaching names to image files for each student. Here are some first names that are notable: R-R Emem Jison Tom Cruise (yes this is just the first name) Buhawe Jack Rzl Sange and Yasha (twins) Phil Collins Abcde Abcdef There are more but I can't remember them
Not kira-kira and I'm not even sure if its a recent trend, but there's a theme in Japanese siblings' names in that they'll often share a common sound or kanji. It's mostly fine and you end up with sisters named Shouko and Kyouko or Aika and Rika. But I know of a family with three boys that my friend taught at elementary school who were named 健太郎 (Kentaro), 光太郎 (Koutaro) and 三太郎 (Santaro). The parents went with 'Healthy Son', 'Bright Son' then gave up and went with 'Third Son'.
Reminds me of my uncle and his sons...The 3 of them are called Lenin ☠️ I remember when my aunt was pregnant with the youngest (I was like 5 btw) they said they were going to call him Lenin too and I told them that was a stupid idea, my mom got so mad...
Well... That's sounds more like an on fashion coming back again. Because in the past they used to give names like "1st born" "2nd born" or "1st son" "2nd son" etc.
The funniest thing about Light Yagami having a « kira kira » name (aside from the obvious pun) is that, given how traditional Soichiro is, and the fact that that Light’s younger sister Sayu has a more usual name, it either means Sachiko chose Light’s name and Soichiro couldn’t deny his wife, or that Soichiro went through a _massive_ hipster phase in his early 30s.
I think he may have had a glimpse of Light not being "all there" at some point so he decided to give his daughter a normal name to be on the safe side 😂
Fantastic video. I actually have a Kira Kira name as well. My parents named me Miguel using 海(ミ)夏(ゲ)瑠(ル). Characters picked out because I was born in a beach town in the summer. Luckily, I moved away from Japan at an early age so I didn’t face any stigma or anything but it’s always interesting when I have to fill out any paperwork.
1 of Japan's political parties meanwhile was led by a migrant from Taiwan/the ROC whose name IIRC is 莲 ('lotus') (Lián) 芳 (Fāng); she would keep these Chinese characters in her name when translated from her native Chinese mother tongue to Japanese kanji (which uses a similar writing script), which in the latter is pronounced as 'Renho' instead & is meaningless though
The whiplash from Angel/Knight being banned and Pikachu allowed, immediately flipping into Angel/Knight being allowed and Pikachu being banned caught me off guard. Japan getting those wildcard mid-season patches irl.
i once knew this girl named "female", she claimed that she got her name because she was born in mexico while her parents were on vacation. the mom was the only one who spoke spanish but since she just gave birth she was, you know... not really functioning... and so when they asked the mom for the name the dad got confused and thought they were asking for the gender and told them "female". she pronounces it like how you say tamale, just with an f instead of a t.
I laughed out loud when I heard "Princess Candy said that if she ever changed her name, she'd go even further and change it to Queeen". Honestly, I respect this woman a lot, she really owns it. Here in Brazil we have some famous stories of weird names like numbers ("123 de Oliveira 4", but with the names spelled out), fictional characters and "Capeta" (the Devil) or incorrect pronunciations for foreign names, like Mary being pronounced "Meire" or "Walt Disney" becoming "Valdisney" I have a distant cousin, born to hippie parents, named "Sunshine" (not sunshine in Portuguese, his name is the word in English).
I'm Mexican and I'm baffled that japanese parents do the same bs we do lmao Here are some examples of names I've heard: -Brayán (Bryan) -Leidy (Lady in English) -Mileidi (Milady, literally) -Dayana (Diana) -Chuarzeneger (Schwarzenegger, yes, like the actor) -Leider ('Unfortunately' in german)
@@pomelo9518 Lieder does mean songs, but you need to look at the word more closely.... it's "LEIDER", which yes, as the previous poster mentioned, means unfortunately.
I'm starting to see a pattern in the gender of kira kira names. Girls tend to like their names because others accept kira kira names as cute and quirky, while boys tend to be made fun of due to a social stigma of having to be serious and looked up to. Their name prohibits them from being taken seriously.
Who says the girls aren’t taken seriously? You think some employer somewhere didn’t scoff as he or she tossed aside a resume from a ‘Mystique Dewdrop Smith’? The few examples here can’t be indicative of anything. I’ve heard of boys named Rex, Brick and Tanner who totally own their names.
@@racool911 It is ridiculous but unfortunately very common. I'm unsure is this happens as often, but they would take note of your name if it was foreign-sounding like Ishmael or maybe Trayvon to try and gage your race beforehand.
@Racool That’s cool but it does happen, and a lot. Especially when you consider that most industries have a high demand and low supply of jobs: so you have a lot of people with equal credentials applying for one post, then your method of selection becomes more arbitrary and personal. It’s not just employers: if you had to chose between visiting two equally credible doctors (or lawyers, etc), would do go with Dr. Moonshine or Dr. Lewis?
That's what I was thinking. Some of these seem more tasteful to me than others. I think it's fine for names to be _unique,_ but like with 光宙 (pikachuu), they should probably at least sound like names first
In Iceland we have pretty strict rules and even a government agency that controls a list of names that you can give your child. Sometimes people try and get new names added to the list, at times they get accepted and people can henceforth chose that name for their child. But it has to follow certain rules/criteria for that. Other times (pretty often actually) they get straight up denied.
I feel like the the flexibility of kanji is both a blessing and a curse. It's great for word play (one of my favourite examples is the music genre "夜好性," pronounced "yakousei" meaning "nocturnal" but with kanji vaguely meaning "those who love the night") and adds a lot of depth and nuance to the language, but it's like some people just really wanna push it with some of these names. Not to mention how hard it is to memorise all the readings.
Kanji is basically just Chinese characters stuck into many different native words of the similar meaning, just like emoji. So technically it should apply to foreign words too. Anyone can read 夜 as “night” if they so please.
@@RadenWA Japanese is so unique in this, it's very interesting. Whereas in the Chinese language, it's usually strictly just one pronunciation, with exceptions like 了 (le or liao).
This is specifically the thing that has kept me from learning Japanese despite wanting to for 25 years. It's hard enough to go from one writing system to another without having to add extra guesswork in the middle.
I’m Hispanic from the Caribbean. I live in a predominantly Hispanic community. Some of the names I’ve heard in my community are pretty hilarious. Here are some of my faves: - Leidy (lady) - Sunami (tsunami) - Usnavy (US Navy, pronounced oos-nah-vee) - Usmail (US Mail, pronounced oos-mah-eel) - Maipu (pronounced my-poo) 💀
I have a good one with a similar logic from a small town in Mexico, calendars had a date marked as "aniv de la rev" short "aniversario de la revolución" (aniversary of the revolution) and I met someone named just that: anivdelarev
Related, but I did meet a guy from the Dominican Republic who was half Japanese and he got a "technically" kira-kira name that was "George". Don't remember the kanji spelling but it did read as "jyou-ji" as well.
It’s funny because I teach English in Japan and Ojisama also means “old man”, so when the kids say Prince in Japanese I’m always like “why did you call him an old man? He’s not old.” And they laugh and say “no, old man is pronounced o-gee-sama.” You lengthen the “ee” sound. Prince is just “Oji-sama” you say it fast. So now whenever I need to say old man in Japanese during class, I always exaggerate the “ee” sound and I’m like o-geeeeeeeeeeee-sama and the kids crack up.
Yes princess is a very common name for girls in the Philippines and more common to have a second name after that. And a lot of local celebrity are named Princess. Fun fact in the late 80s to 90s the anime Princess Sarah/Little Princess Sara is so huge they did a live adaptation of that here in my country.
As a trainee teacher, nothing could ever prepare me for the whiplash I was going to receive when I read the Headmistress's name "Sabun binti Basah" (Soap, daughter of Wet), and the retired Headmaster "Buang bin Sampah" ( [to]Throw, son of Garbage) during my one-week assessment at school
An example of a kira kira name I’ve encountered is a teacher talking about a student who got accepted into my school but dropped out at the last minute. When what who this student’s name is the teacher answered “Feliz Navidad”
I met a 光宙 in an elementary school when I was teaching in Akita. He had his nametag on, and it was my first time visiting the school. I tried to read it (of course there was no furigana), and I said, "お名前、「こう・・・ち」と言いますか。" and he was like, nope, it's Pikachu. I laughed a bit, and then said, "but umm... " and his teacher in the back of the room was just flailing her arms wildly trying to get me to stop. Poor guy.
@@awdrifter3394Pokémon Journeys: Live Action edition 9.99¥ Or just 10 Yen for normal people! Yes we will charge you extra for not worshipping us. Edit: well, given it’s cinema and Yen are basically pennies… 999999999999¥ Okay, that’s too much.
Reminds me of parents calling their child "Abcde" pronounced "AB-si-dee". Some parents are so focused on giving their child a "unique" name that they don't think or care about the effect it will have on the child growing up.
Agreed it feels insidious to name your child something hard to read, strange or just bad to make their life "more unique" unless youre willing to change your name with them don't do it. Children arent supposed to be our little experiements or whats to vicariously live through them without the consequences. Or little acessories
bro where im from a girl was named aeiou (eiyuu) and theres another girl with an all consonant name thats also really long and a mashup of family members' names
In the new anime "Oshi no Ko", the main character's name is Aquamarine, and is written out 愛久愛海. Literally love, long-time, love, ocean. Except 海 is pronounced using the english word marine! The first three kanji can be pronounced a-ku-a. No wonder he goes by アクア.
and if you think about the story it makes sense as well, Ai (the mother) gave him the name after giving birth to him, and she was 16 at that time, so maybe someone young would be more likely to name their children these types of names
Well that's at least how celebrities would name their kids in real life as well. At first I thought their names were written in Katakana only, but then I saw the Kanji version of it. It's pretty nuts.
In the US there's also issues with parents giving their children names that are near unpronouncable or common nouns because they want the name to be "unique". In the first category you get names like "KVIIIlynn" (Kaitlyn), Paishynce (Patience), and "Cenadii" (Kennedy). In the second you get options like Beige, Story, Suede, and Armor.
imo both are funny and/or cool. as long as the name isnt a pop culture reference or something like fuqq or sheet, as a kid, id be fine with it. though, unique pronounciation could be too silly for some, i feel like we've been naming ourselves with words for quite some time
@@primalknight idk, I once dated someone with a name like that (I don't want to say the actual name but for example, it was kind of like "Kyle" but spelled like "Kyghgle") and he had a huge complex around his name. Every single time you change grades, teachers will get your name wrong and will continuously say it wrong at times, you get your name spelled wrong on government documents, when you're an adult people still fail to spell or say your name correctly when referring to you. His brother also had a type of name like that and they both hated it and now both of them go by different names. On the other hand, my name and my sister's names are common nouns and I don't mind it at all. As long as it's done with regards to how the person will grow up and be treated by other people, it's not bad.
Here in Finland we have pretty strict naming rules unfortunately/fortunately. It has it's good and bad sides. It prevents parents from naming their child after products, or mundane items that are easy to make fun of. Of course, I know from experience that even with a pretty normal first name kids will find a way to rip on you, but the chance is lessened. But on the other hand, the rules about the name having to follow not only the Finnish alphabet but also Finnish conventions means names that have extremely easy spelling and pronounciation aren't allowed if the name is "too foreign". Meanwhile the board approved these names: - Häkä (Carbon Monoxide) - Anoo (Doesn't even follow Finnish pronounciation rules and means "is begging") - Pöly (Dust) - Saturnus (Saturn) - Taide (Art) - Unikonsiemen (Poppy seed) - Yennefer (Hard to pronounce, doesn't follow convention) - Kide-Pilvi (Crystal cloud) - Flea (Just the English word Flea) - Kissa (Cat) - Äälö (One letter away from being dumbass) - Lootussydän (Lotus heart) And a bunch of names with hard pronounciation that sound extremely silly (not because they mean anything, just the sound) and don't follow convention, just sound "Finnish enough" so the rules are extremely arbitrary and not consistent at all. And if your name already fits old names you can make combos that mean stuff like "Dude Drunkerthon" basically, I've met them.
I think Princess and Prince names are more common in the Philippines than most people think. It doesn’t sound weird to the locals and it just means to me that the child was loved by their family. What’s weird for me is when some people from here started naming their child with names from Anime and video games, like that one kid named Naruto lmaoo.
The update at 11:20 is interesting. If I remember right, one of the volumes of the Bleach manga had an author's note that was like "I just got a letter from a fan that they named their son after Ichigo, and I'm hyperventilating", b/c it's a joke in the manga that Ichigo has a 'girl' name, but with manly kanji.
In the Soviet times there were a lot of "revolutionary" names. Some of them sounded okay or even were written like some conventional names (for example Damir). But there were also a lot hideous names like Barrikada (barricade), Dazdraperma (short for "da zdravstvuyet pervoye maya" which is roughly translated as "hail the first of May") or Traktor (tractor). After it collapsed, peoplse started using a lot of "fancy" names: some were just western ones like Albert or Mark, but there were also some Princes, Princesses, Lords, Grafs (counts), and after Russian invasion Bayraktar and Dzhavelina (named after Baykar Bayraktar TB2 and FGM-148 Javelin respectively).
my favorites are gertruda, except its short for героиня труда (heroine of labor) and all the lenin variants like vladlen, vil (vladimir ilich lenin)... also kukucapol- кукуруза царица полей, corn the empress of fields
In indonesia there was a man named "Kentut" which means "Fart". He changed it legally after he got famous nationwide because of his name back in 2018. The trial to change his name legally was on the news even.
Indonesian "kira kira" name is not that deep because Indonesian had been writing with Latin Alphabet.... But their ability to name with weird names : both traditionalist and modern parent is just ..... Just imagine naming your child as Tuhan (God) 😂😂
what if there is a guy that is named "Purikyua Jugemu Jugemu a Nerli Infinito On Urtimato Marino Suplasho Mega Wef Duragon Tropikaru Manga Kiwi Rimbo Danzu Tappity-tappu Kurasshu Niagara Showeru Furayin Phoenix Suparru Servingu offu Levelu 100 Supaiciness Furi Rifil offu Fatty Roastu Beauty Legend Passingu Shottu Laura Appollodoros Hyginus La Mer,Grando Ocean Cuteso to Sumartosu Beauty Queen offu All Queen Bubberu Bomberu Furoral Pinku to Purpuro Shadow Fall Line Rat-Ta-Tat Puncho Kururun Kururun Kururun Run,Shuringan to Gurindai,Lando Bitto Dainamiko" (From tropical Rouge Pretty Cure)
I know about 20 people in my city alone who's name's Angel. Pretty common actually for a Catholic nation like ours. Maybe it sounds feminine so it's usually a girl's name & mostly paired with another name (parents here usually give their children two names e.g. Angel Christine so you end up with a very common name such as Angel Christine Reyes Mendoza for a girl..). We also have variations of it such as Cherubim, & surnames such as Archangel... Princess & "Queenie" too. Though they're mostly viewed as outdated and/or lazy if by themselves. Since the Philippines is a former US, Spanish, & Japanese colony, the names here are 9 times out of 10, American sounding first names + Spanish last names. I'm half-Japanese so my name's actually American-Greek-Spanish-Japanese in origin..
How interesting, in latin america angel is actually a name mainly used for boys. I've never heard of a woman named angel but I have two male friends with it.
@@neobellako with the latin "Anghel" I might concur with you on that - that it is a male name. But we normally go with the english pronunciation i.e. "Angel" & it's a bit soft sounding for Filipinos so it's usually a girl's name. There's a peculiar trend in the Philippines where it's predominantly American/English sounding first names then followed by Spanish last names. So you would pronounce "Angel Santiago" as "Eyn-juhl San-tee-yah-goh" rather than "Ang-hell" Santiago.
I LOVE the attitude princess candy has. Its such a cute name and her saying the only thing she would change it to is queen candy is absolutely wonderful.
This reminded me of something that happened in Chile, where some names like like Elsa Pito (translates to the little toad) or Armando Casas (translates to making houses) are prohibited with the purpouse of protecting the child. However, the one thing that isn't prohibited, are Last name combinations (Chile uses 2 last names, the father's first last name first, and the mother's first last name last, the mother doesn't lose her last name when married). So when a couple conformed by a man with the "Rey" (meaning King) last name, and a woman with the italian last name "Follador" (which unfortunately translates to spanish as "the man who fucks/has sex"). The kid born from that marriage had the last names Rey Follador (THE KING OF SEX) Which is very funny but also kinda sad
While the story of Rey Follador is true, it's false that we have any laws against degrading names here in Chile. The "creativity" of parents in this country can often induce massive amounts of cringe, and there's nothing stopping them. Merilin Monroi, Jack Daniels and Elvis Presley have been inflicted as first and second names to poor creatures, as well as the awful "Madeinusa", "Iloveny" and "Usnavy". I'll let the reader figure out the origin of those three.
9:58 In case you were wondering what that tweet said, Hajime says that his mother chose that name on her own, so she wasn't happy about it, then she divorced Hajime's father, she got custody over Hajime, remarried, had another child, whom she also named some crazy thing, and then it turned out she was cheating, so now they (not sure if he means himself or his step-father) cut ties with each other. Yeah, she's a real piece of work, that one.
This lady is covered in red flags, starting with naming your child without your partner's consent, continuing all the way to SEEING the child being mocked and still being offended when the kid doesn't want the name anymore.
as a filipina i cannot tell you enough how many people name their kids Princess/Prince. I even watched a documentary where one of the kid's names was 'queenche'.
@@SaintJames14 Nope. We use the english alphabet. It literally sounds the same (unless spoken with an accent, in which it just makes it sounds stronger in a lot of cases. Less ˈprinsəs or ˈprinˌses, and more Prrin-ses - stronger R, shorter syllables). The parents of that time were probably thinking it sounded graceful when is was still uncommon, but as most results of trends, it cheapened the notion.
@@GreySeashell-j3m ngl that sucks to hear. Weird and kind of arrogant name imo, like Prince or King which happens in the west sometimes. Thanks for the explanation though, be well
Not sure if they count as "kira-kira" as much as the more prominent examples in the video, but there are a lot of Japanese people with names of Western origins that are then changed to be written and spoken in Japanese (kind of like the guy fluent in German). Heck, names like "Karen" and "Erika" are commonly accepted Japanese names that also exist in the West.
可憐 (Karen) as a word means "vulnerable but beautiful." As a name you can use kanji like 夏恋(summer love)、花蓮(lotus flower)、華怜(fabulous and clever). They sound so cute, unlike the western meme.
Yeah some are clever and make sense, such as Karen which can be written in many nice ways. There's also Risa which comes from 'Lisa' and, while usually written in hiragana only, can be written in kanji and not be too weird. I think it's alright if it at least makes some sense, isn't too weird, and the reading for the kanji are used. Chinese and Korean people do it all the time when they go to Japan and I imagine their children will end up with some Chinese name but with the Japanese reading. You could even come up with some made up but clever names if you tried.
In Sweden they don't allow names for children that might cause ridicule for the child but if the parents wants their child to have a unique name its not uncommon for it to get accepted they just need to argue for it. Like i remember parents wanting their girl to be called Puma. And the dad explained it to be slang for a fierce handsome girl. Which was accepted.
Puma actually sounds nice if you don't think too much about it... In my language a male child can actually be named "a lion" and it doesn't sound too odd, maybe just a little old fashioned.
I guess it's kinda weird how over time some common nouns become accepted as normal names while others are seen as weird, and how that changes with each language. Like how naming someone "Pearl" is generally okay in a lot of languages (like, Pearl, Pérola, Shinju are all normal names), but most gems and jewels are a gray area that might make your child's name sound like a stripper. That there are okay flower names to give your child and others that are weird (and those vary by culture), and that some random nouns like Temperance or Hope or Vitória(victory) are totally fine names but any other word and it's odd.
And even weirder when you country uses the flower names as female names (and have a law about that you have to be able to tell if it's male or female by just hearing it) and then you see that one flower name what is a male name. Like as how the actual F it did went through the system to begin with? X'D
In my country, we had people named "Anti Dandruf" "Dontworry", and "Andy Go To School", so kirakira names like this are actually much more tame in comparison.
I meanwhile had a colleague who migrated from Indonesia who was surnamed Romanoff; when I told my friend about it that caught their attention right away "Wow isn't that Black Widow from the Avengers?"
12:01 Also, there is politician who's name is Lord Allan Velaso, and yes “Lord" is a part of his name, not a given title and his actual first name really is “Lord Allan”
Reminds me of some of my classmates in elementary in the Philippines from the late 90s, namely: Jollibee, Babydoll, Barbie, Honey Sugar, male Jennifer, Apple, Princess, Prince and I am not lying....even my colleague (Filipino) who married a Japanese woman named their daughter Reyna (Queen) Miyuki. Plus don't get me started with some of the Filipino last names. When I was in uni, a guy I shared class with has an unfortunate surname that translates to "penis bending". I hope life is treating him well. Also, my real name is so absurd that I only go by my nickname, except for official govt documents.
You should see that one Rated K episode where it showcased a lot of bizarre names for Filipinos. Some that I remember were "Spaghetti '98" and "Drink Water"
When I first came to Japan I was working in a 保育園(hoikuen) as a part time job, and one of the children had the kanji 空 (Sora). I was so happy because this was one of the very few Kanji I could read at the time. Also all the staff use to call him Sora as well so I thought I was right, then I met his parents and mentioned his name in conversation. They then informed me that his name is actually pronounced Sky! Yes the English translation for Sora = Sky! My first thought was are they Hippies?
Chinese and Koreans also have it hard. An exchange student from Shanghai at my uni in Kanagawa was names Wang Shidong 王老师東 (literally means "master of the east") but the sino-japanese reading of his name is... Oh Shi-tou. Teachers had to call out OH SHIT all the time. And guess what? Japanese people don't want to lend the japanese pronounciation of kanji to people who aren't japanese. So even on his ID and student card he was Oh Shit.
That sounds really disrespectful, not gonna lie. Imagine you move to foreign country and they refuse to call you by the correct pronunciation of your name even when their pronunciation sounds ridiculous. Are Japanese really that protective over a script they adopted from Chinese in the first place?
@@brandonhughes4076 Unless they request a name change, Chinese and Korean residents names are always read in the sino-japanese pronounciation. Unless someone has a Chinese or Korean name that can double as a Japanese name (like Yangzi 洋子 could be Yoshiko, Tao 桃 could be Momo) and they get people to call them that, Japanese are able to distinguish Chinese and Koreans by the kanji of their names. Monosillabic family names like Wang, Park, Chen, Kim, etc. are rare in Japan (only one I can think off is Hara 原), so that give it off immediately.
I noticed that while playing Genshin Impact. There's this region in the game based on China, called Liyue. Everyone there have chinese names like Gan'yu or Hutao or Ningguang. I play with the JP dub because I like the seiyuu's work there, and suddenly little Paimon starts talking about some "Gyoukou" and I'm like: Who TF is Gyoukou? I'm talking to Ningguang here, did someone from Inazuma(the in-game region based on Edo-era Japan) appear here? Then comes the region based on the middle east, iran and india, and they said their as normal such as Tighnari or Nahida. Sure, they didn't pronounce those weird consonants because how many people can pronounce the gh, and I'd never expect anyone outside China or speaking a tonal language to ever get the tones of the chinese characters right, but Who TF is Gyoukou?
@@Bronze_Age_Sea_Person I think it's similar to that how people in different countrys pronounce latin words or cognate words from latin. for example, "Caesar" sounds like "see-zer" in English and "kai-sar" in Italian.
The ojisama story reminded me of a funny incident that happened when a new Japanese teacher came to teach us and an upper classmate who's name was IHSSAN. The teacher thought he was adding the honorific San to his name when he introduced himself LOL
I remember hearing this story in high school; probably just an urban legend because I can’t find any proof but it’s funny so I’ll share it anyway. But the story goes that a woman who didn’t speak English had given birth to a girl in an American hospital. She kept hearing the nurses say this one word over and over, and the mother thought the word sounded so beautiful so she chose it as her daughter’s name. It was… P L A C E N T A.
As a Thai, we do have these shiny names also, but as nicknames. We love naming our full official name majestically in something like Sanskrit, then it became too long and awkward to be called by them, we then have a given nickname for casual calling.
12:00 could've been worse. There was a mother in the philippines who went viral because she named her son "Covid Bryant" because he was born during the week that Kobe died.
Man, as someone who has a similar naming scheme to "Enjeru" and "Naito" (not as bad, but definitely was made fun of in elementary school cause of it) I get the struggles of having to deal with people double-taking you when they see/hear it for the first time. Wasn't fun feeling insecure about my name at that time but I've since accepted it and now use it to stand out on Linkedin lmao
Mexico has tons of "weird" names. A while back it was also common in some areas to find people named "Batman", "Goku", "Onedollar" (as in "One Dollar" but pronounced diferently), "Usmail" ("US Mail"), etc. I think that sort of names are now prohibited but people still find workarounds, such as naming their kids after foreign soccer players, sometimes giving them the player's full name (like "Cristiano Ronaldo", i.e). There was also a small trend a few years back when a popular national tv channel aired some Turkish romance series and people started naming their kids after either the main character or her love interest (all of them very Turkish names, of course). There's also a lot of foreign names around, so it's kinda common to find people named "Brian" (often misspelled as "Brayan" due to how the parents pronounce it), "Kimberly", and so on, and which leads to many misspellings/different spellings of the same name, so it's common to find cases like -Lissette -Liset -Lisset -Lizet -Lizzet -Liseth -Lysset -Lyssette -Lyzeth (all pronounced the same since they're supposed to be the same name, and which I'm guessing could make any legal/official paperwork a nightmare)
5:01 As a Russian I can confirm Maria is a correct name in Russian. I actually had 2 classmates with that name when I was at school. So it's not uncommon to find people who have it.
I have a teacher named Maria, who is russian, and also a few acquaintances with the name Masha, which is just a diminutive of Maria. So yeah, not that uncommon. If I remember correctly, it just means Mary, generally, since it's just latin. Now, on a semi-unrelated note, since the word is of latin origin and belongs to the first declension of nouns, that means that two Marias would actually be said two Mariae.
@@arystanakmolinskii9226 I guess most don't know, and just think those names sound nice. I'm learning russian so that's the only reason I personally know.
As a Filipino , yep. Princess is quite a common name here. When I heard the name Princess Candy, I actually personally didn't find it that weird. Filipino naming is very out there. I know someone literally named "Near Blessing" and it didn't feel like a weird name upon hearing it.
Oh my god, that reminds me back in the news of that one girl who is named "sincerely yours 98" or how this dude is literally named "drink water rivera" haha.
I'm glad Princess Candy liked her name, it is sooooo Filipino, when I saw your thumbnail I immediately thought "wait, that is common in the Philippines" because I literally had classmates whose names were Princess and Candy.
Like the fact that in Death Note, Light Yagami's name is Yagami Tsuki (夜神 月: Night God Moon) and fans had called him "Tsuki" for quite a time until the creator proceeded to explain how it's supposed to be pronounced in that scene with Naomi Misora and how Tsuki is actually Raito (ライト) which is derived from English's "Light" to represent the kanji for Moon (月). It is very confusing but I accept it wholly because I love Yagami Light too much to complain. Even though by logic, his name should have been Yagami Hikari (夜神 光) Hikari, the kanji for light. Light has kira-kira name while being Kira.
I watched a few episodes of that and literally just assumed his name was some kind of anime wackiness. it's funny to think that's kinda how it works in real life sometimes, and that that's a thing in Japan
Now that you mentioned it, in one of the japanese Death Note live action movies (the one that took place after Light's death), Light had a son named "Hikari Yagami", so that means both father and son are named "Light" lmfao. 😂
To be fair, the prefix “saint” is relatively common in English. So like Nigel St Nigel. It’s usually a last name, but it’s still not completely uncommon. Last names like Pope, King, and Bishop are also normal.
As a person whose English name was derived from his Chinese name, I... suddenly don't feel so lonely. It's literally 官大仁. There's even a backstory behind my naming process. It's just funny how because all my peers in Singapore speak English my name is just reduced to 'Daren'. Sounded so damn cool in Chinese tho.
To be fair, Daren is easier to say for English speakers than what the Chinese reading is (I assume it kind of sounds like Daren but with specific tonal inflections?)
@@314rft yeah. The joke is that it's kinda like how 'flower' and 'flour' sound the same, and 大仁 sounds like 大人 which means adult. The 官 makes it funnier because 官大人 implies the job profession as in the judge in court.
If I have to call someone Daren in real life, a part of my brain is going to suddenly imagine myself with a costume fit for one of Judge Bao's minions, is all I'm saying. It's really hard to shift the association 😅
@@314rft Well the word 官大人 (meaning government official but sarcastically) is used very common in the genre of historical fantasy in Chinese TV shows, typically replacing the word "cop" when the main character is running from the cops.
I guess in the SEA we have a lot of weird name or at least in Thailand. The name “Pooh” and “Jedi” is actually somewhat common nickname and not sound weird at all here. I myself have the nickname “Xerox” which is pretty unique in Thailand and the I also received some of the same reaction Akaike-san have to face as well, but I don’t mind it much any more and actually love my nickname more as I grow older. Love the video and I also trying to learn how to read those kanji so the video is quite interesting! ❤
ESL teacher here - had a Chinese student named Huaizhe (dont know the characters, sry). His grandmother or smth had a lot of respect for a German doctor in her town, so she gave her son his name as a family name: Schweizer
Forbidding parents to put a name can be seen as bad and overstepping on the duties of the state, but i think names like "Devil", "Bad" or even "Ojisama" can carry problems to the person with that name and stopping parents that haven't thought it well enough i see it as a good thing, i'm sure the parents can think about more names that they will love and would not bring problems to their son.
Fitting for this video to come out right around the time that the anime Oshi no Ko is becoming extremely popular, seeing as how Ai gave both her children, Aquamarine and Ruby, kirakira names 😂
I think every country has their own cringe names from time to time, not only in Japan. I mean, look at my country, someone actually named their child "Coviduvidapdap" Dela Cruz during the high of the pandemic. I'm not joking, look it up, there is even a "Covid Bryant" I cant anymore hahaha
When it comes to otaku media, "Umineko no Naku Koro ni" has a good example of a family with a lot of Kira-kira names. They have all names with kanji, but they are read completely different. For example, the protagonist Battler (戦人) or his father Rudolf (留弗夫). Other names like Eva, Rosa, Jessica, George and the like are the same.
I've heard of Umineko before, but the Rudolf thing is news to me. It's extra hilarious because 留 is pronounced Ru, and 夫 is pronounced Fu, so by process of elimination they're pronouncing 弗 as Dol. That's not a standard pronunciation, and it took me a moment to figure out how they got from Point A to Point B...
@@indiradefa3733 Hifumi is a really funny name but SOMEHOW this is a genuine name in Japan that people aren't concerned about, despite it sounding like it should be a Kira Kira name. Sheeeesh the double standards (/jk).
in some countries it is already forbidden to give your child a silly or bad name. there was this one instance of a Belgian couple who wanted to name their daughter "Bloem", meaning flower in dutch. it is a somewhat common name. However, since their last name was "Pot" meaning.. pot, it was not allowed since her names would spell flowerpot together. these rules have been there for a long time in some countries, and they were more rigid, where some names would not be allowed, simply because they were not recognized as names.
Honestly my step Grandma, after getting married, has the same kind of thing going on. I never understood why it troubled her as in America it’s not that big a deal
@@courtneyn.m.1687 i guess it is more dependent on those that you interact with. some people can be really childish, and children can be very mean.. if no-one bothers you with it then i guess it would not matter so much. but still if i would have to live with a name that sounds stupid in my native language, it would not matter where i live, it would bother me a bit..
I really hate it when parents do this. Names are really a big part of a person's life. Parents naming their kids with ridiculous names are just straight up irresponsible. I question whether they even deserve to be a parent because they literally just make their child a subject of ridicule instead of giving their child the best chance at having a good childhood
The topic of the names in different cultures is very beautiful. I'm from Ukraine and I have an associate with one of the most beautiful names I've ever encountered. His name is Svitezar. Now, I know that might sound like an evil necromancer to some, but let me explain why it's beautiful. Svitezar is composed by two words "svit" that means "world"/"light" and "zar" was an ending to the names that meant "royal" but that wasn't always the truth, anyone could name their children like that. The most beautiful thing about this name is that the short name when you get familiar with this person is "Svityaz'" with a soft "z" at the end, that is just wonderful because we have a local lake called exactly that and it's very beautiful there.
Well, one small correction. "Zar" is not "royal" ("TSar" as a title of the king is entirely Russian thing), but a shortening of the word "zorya", which means "star/dawn" in English.
3:00 Reminded me of episode 11 of Tesagure! Bukatsumono Encore where the girls were talking about _new_ Rakugo Club features and one of them mentioned that everyone's Kouzan names are sparkly, "Pikachuu" was the first example used 🙈 (kinda wonder as well if the VA in that anime heard about that from the news or if she happened to hear about it elsewhere) She also mentioned 緑輝 would be "Sapphire" as well 😂 But as a name that would stick for the rest of your life tho would be a bit errrrrr topical, depending on the person in question 🙈 4:32 Also reminded me of that video on RU-vid from a Japanese TV show segment where they got a guy to go around looking for people wearing English on their clothing and translating them, one of which a female's shirt happened to have "Diarrhoea" written on it :') 4:40 Seeing those characters reminded me of one of Hiromi Ishikawa's famous songs 聖母たちのララバイ where 聖母 isn't said as _Seibo_ in the title but as _Madonna_ instead so I guess perhaps Maria got away with a name that isn't _as_ cringe as Madonna perhaps 🙈 Tho I feel perhaps Maria is a _bit_ more acceptable considering it's an actual name used as opposed to Pikachuu, being resonant of said fictional character from a popular series which most there would know of 9:27 When I first heard his new name is Hajime, being a follower of the iM@S and going onto Deresute every day, I actually thought of Hajime Fujiwara, and then she popped up and was like ah 🙈 Tho this whole debacle did remind me as well of an anime called Servant x Service, about a girl who is a new recruit working within the civil service sector with the intention of hunting down who was responsible for giving the okay to allow her name at birth to have a good 62+ name parts within her name I wonder if having the sparkly name is worse or if having to have _rest omitted_ as part of your name would be worse
@@Japanalysis Ahhh no problem, I'm surprised with this praise ngl 😂 Just wanted to ask tho, I tried looking for your channel email but couldn't find it to contact you :')
Very great video! Because you have to consider both the meaning of the kanji and the pronunciation gives so much room for these weird names. Here in Germany there’s also laws regulating on how you can name your child. It says that the name „must be recognisable as a first name“, that’s why parents trying to name their child „summer“ „rain“ or „princess“ got rejected. Still there exists funny names. For example there’s actually a person called „Max Mustermann“ (the German equivalent of „John Doe“), or persons called „Troblemaker“ (Störenfried) or „puppet“ (Puppe)
