Comments on: 1993 article on Gregory Clark, “embittered expatriate”

By: Jade Oc

Jade Oc — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 05:31:38 +0000

I rather like Wang Kumao. My name is a major major hassle as both parts contain letter combinations not used in Japanese, or at least not as kanji. But I have always been partial to one that sounds not too dissimilar: 世阿弥. Nice literary connection too.

By: Bryce

Bryce — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 04:46:33 +0000

Nowadays if I want to kanjify my name I take the bu from my old transliteration of buraisu: 武雷主 (lame, I know, and the last character is a stretch phoenetically. My friends wanted me to take 無頼州) and then whack a (kindof) straight translation of my last name to get 起田武, a fairly normal Japanese name.

By the way, if anybody is still interested in the issue of tenure in Japan there is a discussion going on at NBR now. It seems that in Japan, the practice of moonlighting at other universities is pretty common, so much so that it’s difficult for new PhD’s to get full time work. I didn’t really notice it at my university in Japan, and I’m not sure that allowing current PhD students to act as contract lecturers for basic classes, which is what they do elsewhere doesn’t have the same effect. (In fact I’ve done it at home. It is pretty rare in Japan – actually nonexistent in my experience).

By: Roy Berman

Roy Berman — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 04:14:56 +0000

Well, if I translate “Roy Berman” literally I get: 王熊男 which actually looks a lot like a name an old Taiwanese man might have, with a Chinese family name and a Japanese-ish personal name. Of course, it also reversed my family and personal name, which is pretty weird. Maybe it would make more sense to just make my family name “熊” and then transliterate Roy using conventional characters for transliteration like “羅伊” or something kind of silly with the same sounds, like “駱蟻”. Or I could try and pick something really nerdy with a classical allusion, but having fairly little interest in or knowledge of the Chinese classics I don’t think I’ll be going there.

In short, I haven’t picked a good one yet, but you may notice that I’ve only thought about it based on Chinese and not Japanese. I guess 熊羅伊 (Xiong Luoyi) isn’t too bad. I like the idea of translating my family name, but still having people call me something fairly close to “Roy”.

By: Joe Jones

Joe Jones — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 03:28:28 +0000

I’ve been frustrated by attempts to kanjify my name because “Joe” is the only component that can be decently transliterated.

I’ve considered making 譲 or 城 my family name and endowing myself with an awesome given name like 家康, but this would interfere with my plans to name my sons 譲一郎, 譲次郎, 譲三郎 ...

By: M-Bone

M-Bone — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 03:17:16 +0000

Roy – what are the Kanji for your Chinese name?

I’m going to write my net name like this 恵無菩濡

夜露死苦

By: Jade Oc

Jade Oc — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 03:15:11 +0000

“This rule apparently varies between city halls.”
“And it seemed to differ between towns as well.”

It’s funny how that is. In that sense it would be good to have some standardization.

Roy: any desire to get a driver’ licence with 変種　蛙....?

By: Joe Jones

Joe Jones — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 03:10:17 +0000

Yeah, apparently there are two competing rules depending on where you live:

1) Your hanko has to match the orthography of your name/alias (i.e., same script, not necessarily same order)
2) Your hanko just has to sound the same as your name/alias

But Roy, just to clarify: Any foreigner can register an alias in kanji or kana regardless of where they come from. So you could register your Chinese name (Wong Ba Man was it?) as a legal alias, provided that you have evidence of actually using it (i.e., a letter to yourself). Your registered “legal name,” on the other hand, would be whatever appears on your passport, and I think you can only have your legal name in kanji if you’re a Chinese or Korean citizen.

The sample naturalization application at the MOJ web site shows a fictitious Korean applicant with two aliases (listed to the right of the real name):
http://www.moj.go.jp/ONLINE/NATIONALITY/6-2-1.html

By: Bryce

Bryce — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:45:21 +0000

—but this only applied to my hanko.

By: Bryce

Bryce — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:43:17 +0000

I was sure there was an ordinance in my town that said there had to be some relationship between the sound of the name and the kanji. And it seemed to differ between towns as well. I know when I moved I wasn’t allowed to use my kanjified name. And it wasn’t just because the formulation was lame, although that might have been part of the reason.

By: Roy Berman

Roy Berman — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:39:58 +0000

So Joe, to be clear, your legal name in Japan must be in katakana unless your legally registered name in your home country is in Kanji? It would not be legal for me to register in Japan using all-Kanji for my legal name?