I wrote last time about how names work in Japanese, and how it can be fun to assign kanji to a Western name and see what crazy meanings you can come up with. Yes, Japan’s kanji-based name system is quite complex, both in good ways (since kanji are visually very beautiful, and when you have kids thinking up names for them is fun) and bad (kanji is the hardest part of learning Japanese). There are other challenges, too. It’s not uncommon at all for a person’s name to be totally unreadable to others, especially the names of older Japanese like my mother-in-law, whose name is “Miyou” written with characters that mean “34 rabbits” but which no would could ever pronounce. Just as you need to know how to spell “Steven Spielberg” do perform a Google search on his name, you need to know the right character for actress Reiko Takashima’s name, or you’ll get results for different people entirely. In the example below, the leftmost kanji is how you write Japanese singer/actor Takuya Kimura’s name, but if you accidentally choose the name to the right you’ll get results for the former Yomiuri Giants baseball player, who had the same name (but a slightly different kanji). Incidentally, remember that J-List has hundreds of books, flashcards and other tools to help you learn Japanese
