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"Japanese Baby Names
Japanese baby names come in at least two different varieties. One is a name written in the alphabet -- like Masako or Daiki -- and another is written in kanji. Most Japanese people have a kanji name.
What are Kanji Characters?
Kanji characters are ideograms -- each character has its own meaning and corresponds to a word. This is Princess Aiko in kanji characters.
Princess Aiko -- in Kanji ...
The first Kanji character in Princess Aiko's name means "love" and the second character means "child". Her parents (Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako) want her known as "a person who loves others" because a person who loves others, is loved in return.
In September 2004, the Family Registration Law was changed in Japan. The number of kanji characters that can be used as names went from 2,235 characters to 2,298 characters. Click Here for an article on the change in the law about Japanese baby names.
If you want to use a kanji character that is not on the approved list when naming your baby, the kanji characters must be approved by local government offices. However, applications from parents for different kanji characters are usually turned down.
That doesn't mean there are limited choices for Japanese baby names. The same name can usually be written in many different kanji combinations -- some names have more than 50 combinations!
Recent trends in Japanese baby names
"ko" means child in Japanese and has been very popular for the ending syllable in girls' names for hundreds of years. 80% of females have "ko" at the end of their names. However, this trend is changing.
At the present time, young people are changing some of the traditional ways of naming. There are are only four names out of the top 100 popular names that have "ko" at the end -- Momoko, Riko, Sakurako and Nanako.
Boys names are changing too. Endings such as "ta", "ya", "ki", and "hei", and "suke" are becoming more popular. Western or exotic sounding names are trendy for girls -- Anna, Emiri, Maria, Jurl, Rina and Rena.
Here are the 10 most popular Japanese baby names for girls and boys:
| Rank |
Girls |
Boys |
| 1 | Misaki | Shun |
| 2 | Aoi | Takumi |
| 3 | Nanami | Shou |
| 4 | Miu | Ren |
| 5 | Riko | Shouta |
| 6 | Miyu | Souta |
| 7 | Moe | Kaito |
| 8 | Mitsuki | Kenta |
| 9 | Yuuka | Daiki |
| 10 | Rin, Ai | Yuu |
How are Young People Affecting the Trends?
Another tendency for young parents in giving their babies their Kanji name, is to put an extra radical (stroke) into the kanji character. Young people tend to be more interested in the audio and visual aspects of the kanji characters than the meanings.
The problem with this is that one small change in the kanji character can change the meaning of the whole word. For example, one small radical added on the left, denoting a person, changes the beautiful meaning "people loving" of the character for "love" into "dimwit".
For more on Japanese baby names and kanji, Click Here.
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