Japanese names have a wholly unique appeal to Western otakus - exotic, resonant, and a little mysterious, they stand for another world: for the colorful, happy, or exciting lifestyle that is embodied by and shown in the comics and movies which we all love. It's no wonder, then, that many fans try and impart a whiff of anime magic upon their own gray, everyday lives through nicknames such as "Momoko", "Hotaru", or "Asuka". And why not?
For others, however, not the least of whom are newcomers to all things manga, anime, and Japan, the names of the characters and, above all, of the makers often represent little more than an alphabet soup. [1] How is this pronounced? What's the first name and what's the last name (isn't this somehow different with the Japanese...)? Is this a man or a woman? And is it possible that the name has some kind of special meaning?
To do away with a little of the confusion, we want to give you some brief insight into the - not uncomplicated, even for the Japanese - naming system here...

The Japanese use three - actually, even four - writing systems at once, side by side: kanji, hiragana, katakana, and romaji.
Kanji are characters adopted from the Chinese that have acquired slightly modified meanings in Japanese and for which there are always at least two different readings: the so-called "ON" reading, whose pronunciation leans towards that of the original Chinese one, is mostly used when the character appears in combination with others; the Japanese "kun" reading is then used when the character appears alone. In this way, the character for "mountain" is read "yama" when it stands alone (kun), but in connection with a name like e.g. "Fuji", it's "san" (ON). (The Japanese speak of "Fujisan", not "Fujiyama".) Kanji are used for root words, nouns, as well as for parts of proper names, though, sneakily, in connection with names, the rule of thumb "with others ON, alone kun" doesn't apply: the name which is written with the kanji for "mountain" and "rice field" (ta) is e.g. normally read as "Yamada".
Hiragana and katakana are two syllabic alphabets, both comprised of 46 characters, each one of which represents a specific syllable. Some of these can then also be altered through softening or hardening characters, and that's the way that e.g. from the character "ha"  you get "ba" through the addition of a softening character and "pa" through the addition of a hardening one. As a rule, the "round" hiragana are used for particles, word endings, and (when placed adjacent to kanji in teeny-weeny form, particularly in texts aimed at younger audiences) employed as pronunciation help for the Chinese characters. The "angular" katakana are primarily used to reproduce loan words from other languages. Naturally, since these often contain sounds that don't exist in Japanese as such, the syllables most closely approaching them are simply used. In this way, the German "Märchenland" becomes "me-ru-hen-ran-do" in Japanese, "Arbeit" becomes "a-ru-bai-to" (and means part-time job). [2]
Romaji, literally "Roman writing", is the ultimate designation for our Western alphabet, which, for Japanese, has modern and exotic properties and is especially fondly used for effects, e.g. in order to give an advertised product of whatever nature (CD cover, book, t-shirt...) a "cool", globally appealing (and internationally legible, which isn't without its marketing advantage) coat of paint. There are different official systems used to transcribe Japanese syllables into romaji that are partly responsible for the confusion - the syllable , pronounced as "scha", is written as "sha" in one system and as "sya" in another [3]; the lengthening of a vowel (let's take o as an example) is sometimes represented by placing a macron over the vowel (ô), sometimes through the addition of an h (oh), sometimes through the addition of a u (ou) (this is not the case with "a", however). All of these variations are equally correct, but have already also provoked veritable miniature wars among fans as far as the "one true" Western spelling of certain character names is concerned. Ryôga, Ryoga, or Ryouga? Haruka Tenoh, Tenou, Ten'ou, or Ten'oh?
Also, the fact that the Japanese are occasionally anything else but precise with their spelling when it comes to romaji can lead to curious results (Lina Inverse's magical phrase "Dragon Slave" is e.g. referred to as "Drug Slave" on one Japanese postcard, but definitely has nothing to do with drugs...). (A more detailed explanation of the Japanese writing systems with hiragana and katakana tables can be found in Issue 21.) For now, let's stick with the rendition of Japanese names and terms in romaji as we encounter them in Western anime magazines or on the Internet over and over again.
The names are actually pronounced in almost the exact same way that they're read:
- "a", "e", "i", "o", "u" are pronounced as they are in German, but
  very short.
- "ai" is pronounced like "ai", "ei" more like "eh".
- As described above, the lengthening of a vowel is represented by
  placing a macron over the vowel, through the addition of an "h",
  through the addition of a "u" (with o and u), or through a doubling
  of the vowel (aa, uu, oo).
- There is no difference in pronunciation (only sometimes in the
  romaji writing) between "r" and "l". Though mostly written as "r", the
  sound meant here is more of a combination between our "r" and
  "l", with the tip of the tongue relatively far in front at the gums, just
  behind the teeth. In case of doubt, it's better to pronounce it as "l".
- The "g" at the beginning of a word is pronounced exactly as it is in
  German, but never as "dsch". In the middle of a word, the "g" is
  sometimes pronounced nasally, hence something like "ng".
- The "j" is always pronounced as "dsch", "ch" is pronounced as
  "tsch".
- "fu" is the only syllable that is aspirated, hence something like
  "hu".
- The "z" is spoken as a voiceful s, unlike in the German "Zoo".
- The "u" is commonly spoken very short, almost swallowed.
- Every syllable is pronounced with the exact same length, the
  intonation relatively monotone.
Sounds complicated, doesn't it? But it's not. Just perk up your ears during the next subtitled anime! Here are some examples (remember that all syllables are equally accented):
Naoko Takeuchi: na-o-ko ta-ke-ut-schi
Sakura Shinguji: sa-ku-ra schin-gu-dschi
Haruka Tenoh: ha-lu-ka te-n-oh
Akane Tendo: a-ka-ne te-n-doh
Ranma Saotome: lan-ma sa-o-to-me
Minako Aino: mi-na-ko ai-no
Kozo Fuyuzuki: ko-so hu-ju-su-ki
Leiji Matsumoto: leh-dschi mat-su-mo-to
Kyosuke Kasuga: kjo-s-ke ka-s-ga
It's not that difficult, even if you initially have to think past the thoughtlessly used German pronunciation ("Akaaahne", "Sakuuuhra", "aniiiihme")... [4]

In Japan, the family name usually appears in first, the given name in second place. Therefore, there's talk of Takeuchi Naoko, Takahashi Rumiko, Matsumoto Leiji, and Tezuka Osamu there. While some Western manga and anime-themed publications (among them Fred Schodt's "Manga Manga", Helen McCarthy's "Anime! Beginner's Guide", Jacqueline Berndt's "Manga") adopt this style of writing, the majority (Helen McCarthy's "Anime Movie Guide", magazines like Animeland, Manga Max, Protoculture Addicts) gives the names in Western order: Rumiko Takahashi, Leiji Matsumoto, Osamu Tezuka. As a general rule in AnimaniA, the names are also always written in the order given name, family name.
If you happen to run into a hitherto unknown name, it's extremely difficult to determine what exactly the given and what the family name is if no indications about which writing style is being used can be found. All you can actually hope for is to run into a familiar name where you unambiguously know what it is and use that to orient yourself.
What can also lead to confusion here is the fact that it's common practice in Japanese schools for students to address each other by their last names amongst themselves - the given name remains reserved for one's closest friends. In "Ranma 1/2", for example, Tatewaki Kunô (that isn't the German name "Kuno"!) is addressed as "Upperclassman Kunô" (Kunô-senpai) as a matter of course, and it's not any different for Umino in "Sailor Moon", whose first name is actually Gurio. That Momoko in "Wedding Peach" admittedly addresses her crush Kazuya by his family name "Yanagiba" but Yosuke Fuma as "Yosuke" already indicates that there's a special connection between the two... (but I don't want to reveal too much, of course)

Now, to find out without prior knowledge if a name belongs to a boy or a girl can turn out to be just as difficult since a great many names can be used for both men and women, such as e.g. "Akira", "Makoto", "Haruka", "Yuki", "Hiromi", "Masami" or "Tatsumi".
Admittedly, a great many first names for girls end with "-mi" (beauty) or "-ko" (child) - such as e.g. "Akemi", "Megumi", "Katsumi", "Naomi", "Ryôko", "Rumiko", "Naoko", "Yôko" - so the probability that "Akiko", "Shôko", or "Harumi" are also women is high; by the same token, "-suke" (Kyôsuke, Saisuke), "-ichi" (Kenichi, Shinichi), "-hiro" (Nobuhiro), "-ji" (Jôji, Shuji), and "-kazu" (Masakazu) are common elements in male first names, for example. But, even here, you can't always completely rely on this - not even when you know the way the name is written in kanji.
Admittedly, some kanji are preferably used for male and others preferably used for female names, but, as always, there are exceptions that prove the rule... Thus reports the "Asahi Shimbun" about a retired principal from Yamagata, whose first name, "Shôe", is consistently read as "Masae" and who is therefore always thought to be a woman. When the school staff went on a trip and they sought out their accommodations, he found his name registered in one of the four person rooms for women. When he was transferred to a new school, parents swarmed in in the hopes of meeting a flesh-and-blood female school principal (a rarity in Japan!) face to face. It's the reverse for the 35-year-old Miharu Hayashi, whose father, while filling out her birth certificate, swapped the two kanji in her first name for some reason (Harumi is a relatively common female first name) and whose name is now commonly interpreted as the male name "Yoshiharu". Which is presumably also related to the fact that she keeps finding advertisements for pornographic videos in her mailbox...

Japanese names are ordinarily written in kanji - only ca. 6% of all Japanese have names that are written in hiragana or even katakana (less than 0.3%). Hybrid forms lie at ca. 1%. As already mentioned, nearly all kanji have two different readings - now, while it's relatively simple to recognize which reading is being used in "normal" texts with some experience, when it comes to name characters, however, there are so many variations, combinations, and interpretational possibilities - and this even though only a specific assortment of kanji are officially approved for use in names, anyway - that even native Japanese can't say on the first try what exactly someone is called whose name they only have written in kanji in front of them - even name dictionaries don't always help here. It's a rule of thumb that only the owner of the name actually reliably knows how it's read. Official guidelines are, admittedly, widely rejected by the Japanese: "Since only characters whose usage has been officially approved come into question for name kanji anyway, all the fun would be gone if you also specified their reading in detail." says a 33-year-old woman in the "Asahi Shimbun", who gave her daughter the name "Rira" (or "Lila"), comprised of the kanji for "reason" and "joy". "But I would suggest that parents, when entering the names in lists or forms, add reading and gender to it." In the same newspaper report, Hisashi Ikeda, a civil servant from Tokyo, thinks that, "These days, where everyone demands the free development of individuality, we should actually be happy about individual names."

Japanese names - through the choice and reading of the kanji - actually always have a meaning. In real life, this can be purely coincidental, the name perhaps selected based on its pleasant sound without the parents having given much thought to the meaning - who among us today has greatly contemplated the fact that e.g. "Carmen" means "song" or "poem" or that "Sabine" was originally a designation for a member of the ancient Italian tribe of the Sabines (ever heard of the "rape of the Sabines"?) and not just a few atheists have named their children "Christian" or "Christine".
Of course, there are also parents who think about the names of their children. A married musician couple from Ibaraki named e.g. their two daughters "Wakana" (to play harmoniously) and "Ion" (to hold a note) and their son "Yuzuru" (to caress strings): "We wanted music to immediately come to mind with their names." Nobuhiro Okujima from Misawa received this name from his parents as a symbol of their wish that their son might freely (nobinobi) develop (hirogaru). The 35-year-old Hiroko Tsukiyama from Nagano named her eldest daughter "Kizuku". In a time in which women are playing an increasingly active role, she attached a lot of importance to avoiding a gender-specific name and to additionally consider the fact that it should immediately engrain itself within the minds of others (the name is, on the one hand, very rare, and, on the other, the first kanji of the family name is identical to that of the given name). And one more story: when Yukiyo Matsuda was born in 1963 and her father discovered that his firstborn child was a girl, the birth suddenly left him completely cold and he rarely came home anymore. The mother eventually chose a name that was in fashion at the time and took steps towards officially registering her as "Miki". Two months later, the father came back, fell into a fit of rage when he found out about the name, made a murderous fuss at the registration office, and forced the change to "Yukiyo" with the argument that his mother had, after all, been named "Yukiko". In the years that followed, the girl was addressed by everyone only by the male first name "Yukio" and her father forbade her to to wear dresses. Somewhere along the way, she acquired the nickname "Yukibê" (the appendage -bê, especially in rural areas, is used to refer to women with distinctly male character traits). She ran away from home at 16 because she couldn't get along with her father, received a scholarship at a magazine publishing house, attended high and technical school, got her motorcycle license, and jobbed as, among other things, a forklift operator. Today, she works at a hotel in Yaita. In an interview with the Asahi Shimbun, she remembers the Mikis that she had known in her class - altogether reserved, unassuming girls that would never have dared to answer back. "What would have become of me if I had stayed Miki?"

Names with a meaning are, of course, also a popular choice in manga and anime as a means through which the characters may be imparted with an additional dimension (which is not always accessible to Western readers, unfortunately). In doing so, the creators of the characters can enjoy an almost limitless freedom and create not only first but also last names that don't really exist in Japan. Therefore, you would surely have difficulties finding a Saotome, Hououji, or Tsukino family in a Japanese telephone book. First names like Ranma, Fuu, Usagi, or Tenchi are hardly commonplace (if someone hasn't named their child after the comic book characters in the interim). The name "Ranma" is e.g. written with the kanji for "wild" and "horse" when dealing with the male Ranma and in hiragana (which, for a long time, was considered to be "women's writing") when dealing with the female version. "Saotome" consists of the kanji for "quick" or "early" and for "young girl". That actually already reveals almost everything about the character - wild, unconventional, spirited, and then there's also that boy/girl thing...
Names like Hikaru Shidô (Light Lion Temple), Umi Ryûzaki (Sea Dragon Blossom) and Fuu Hououji (Wind Phoenix Temple) were also freely created by Clamp and effectively emphasize the characterization of these figures as we know them from the anime and the manga. The name "Tenchi", in turn, is composed of the kanji for "heaven" and "earth", likewise very indicative if you know the secret surrounding the lad... "Mamoru", on the other hand, is a completely ordinary Japanese first name, but, in combination with the surname "Chiba", the name means "Protect the Earth". "Kaioh", "Meioh", and "Tenoh" - the surnames of the Sailor Soldiers Neptune, Pluto, and Uranus - are simply the Japanese designations for their respective planets. The name of "Momoko Hanasaki" from "Wedding Peach" is made up of the kanji for peach (momo), the female suffix -ko ("child"), flower (hana), and destiny (saki); the given names of her female friends Yuri (Angel Lily) and Hinagiku (Angel Daisy) mean "lily" and "daisy". And just to name an example from a completely different genre, namely "Ghost in the Shell", "Kusanagi" (grass vanquisher) is, in Japanese mythology, the name of a magical sword, one of the three treasures of the emperor (sword, mirror, and jewel - yes, exactly like the Talismans in "Sailor Moon S") that bestowed upon its owner the power to vanquish entire armies. Helen McCarthy writes that the sound of the name "Motoko Kusanagi" has similar significance to Japanese readers or viewers as naming the heroine of a US movie "Jane Excalibur" would.
Now, whoever finds this strange only has to take a look around themselves: as a matter of fact, names with expressive power like this are common practice in the American movie industry: thus, in e.g. "The Truman Show", the only person who's anything close to being sincere and truthful is "True Man" Burbanks, and the villain in "The Net" introduces himself as "Jack Devlin" (derived from "devil"). Even in our everyday use, different names, for the most part, resonate with different meanings - thus, a "Manni" brings another kind of guy to mind than a "Detlev" or an "Engelbert" does, and when you hear the name "Klothilde", you don't initially envision the owner as being a pert girlie with a nose piercing and a tattoo; "Emma" invokes the image of a corpulent woman in her mid-fifties in an apron behind the counter of the village Aunt Emma Store in some, a memory of the last Spice Girls concert in others. This is no different in other countries, and without intense immersion in the respective culture - whether it's Japan or America - you'll never be able to completely grasp such trivial things. Luckily, of course, you can also enjoy and understand movies (or comics or whatever) without comtemplating the meanings of all the names; these are also more of an additional "extra" than an absolutely necessary requirement for understanding the plot. But it's still a pity sometimes...

As you can see, it's anything but easy to gain perspective with Japanese names. In spite of the fact that, with time, you come to recognize some patterns and learn to evaluate what's probably what to a certain extent, without knowing something about the person concerned, it's basically impossible to interpret a name with certainty. However, in order to at least provide you with something tangible for your initial orientation, we've compiled an assortment of girls', mens', and family names currently in use from name lists, movie credits, and newspapers. All of these names are therefore in actual everyday use and none were newly created for mangas or animes. Naturally, this list in no way claims to be exhaustive...

A selection of Japanese given names for girls:
Akemi, Manami, Mami, Sakura, Mitsuko, Kaori, Ryôko, Miharu, Harumi, Hiroko, Ayumi, Mayumi, Atsuko, Yôko, Kumiko, Akiko, Katsumi, Akane, Narumi, Shôko, Kyôko, Ryôko, Megumi, Kazuko, Kozue, Yuri, Mitsuki, Yoshiko, Asuka, Kotono, Chisato, Naoko, Chiaki, Keiko, Emi, Kiyoko, Ayako, Tomomi, Miyako, Reika, Yû, Noriko, Yumi, Fumiko, Tomoe, Rumiko, Aya, Junko, Miyuki, Natsumi, Eiko, Yuko, Yukana...

A selection of Japanese given names for men:
Ryô, Ichirô; Masakazu, Tetsuya, Daisaku, Daisuke, Tetsuo, Hiroshi, Ken'ichi, Akio, Toshihiro, Nobuhiro, Mitsuteru, Hideyuki, Katsuhito, Takashi, Shinji, Koichi, Osamu, Hiroyuki, Kazuhiro, Mamoru, Noboru, Shôji, Shûji, Shinichi, Tarô, Yûji, Kôji, Takeshi, Satoshi, Tsutomu, Kaoru, Shinichiro, Masanori, Hajime, Yutaka, Kazuya, Kenji, Ryûichi, Kôjirô, Hideaki, Mitsuru, Hisashi, Tsukasa, Akihiko, Soichiro...

A selection of Japanese surnames:
Yamada, Matsumoto, Takahashi, Tanaka, Yamamoto, Yoshimoto, Itô, Kobayashi, Satô, Suzuki, Watanabe, Okawa, Honda, Okuda, Tsujimoto, Daitokuji, Yokoyama, Chiba, Katô, Hayashi, Ikeda, Negishi, Tsukiyama, Sakaguchi, Nakamura, Aoki, Kumada, Toriumi, Yoshida, Takeuchi, Kawamori, Takada, Mori, Ikegami, Hirano, Kanno, Nakazawa, Inoue, Kawamura, Araki, Maruyama, Ochi, Eguchi, Miyazawa...

SH (Stefanie Holzer)

Most Important Sources:
AnimaniA 21: "A Few Words About Japanese Writing..."
Asahi Shimbun (Dahlem Edition) 180, 15.11.1999
Fast-Paced Japanese 1, Dr. Hammes Doitsu Gakuin Ltd.
Sailor Moon - the Roleplaying Game
All illustrations - unless otherwise indicated - originated from the artbook "Tokimeki Memorial Illustrations", ISBN 4-87188-858-4, 2800 Yen (import price ca. 100 DM). © Konami.

Translator's Notes
To restore the usefulness of the first part of this article (which uses German syllables and phoenetic equivalents to demonstrate pronunciation, after all), most of the notes for this document will essentially be a rewrite using the best English equivalents that the translator and his trusty sidekick could come up with. ^_^; For clarity's sake, the rewritten parts appear in red and the preserved parts appear in purple.
1. The term originally used where "alphabet soup" is found was "Buchstabensalat", which literally translates as "letter salad". This is a German compound word I chose to replaced with an approximate English equivalent that, while not identical in meaning, is more comprehensible and preserves the food analogy. ;)
2. "Märchenland" and "Arbeit" are German for "fairy (tale) land" and "work", respectively.
3. There are different official systems used to transcribe Japanese syllables into romaji that are partly responsible for the confusion - the syllable  , pronounced as "sha", is written as "sha" in one system and as "sya" in another...
4. The names are actually pronounced in almost the exact same way that they're read:
- "a", "e", "i", "o", "u" are pronounced as they are in English, but very short.
- "ai" is pronounced like "eye", "ei" more like the "eigh" in "weigh".
- As described above, the lengthening of a vowel is represented by placing a macron over the vowel, through the addition of an "h", through the addition of a "u" (with o and u), or through a doubling of the vowel  (aa, uu, oo).
- There is no difference in pronunciation (only sometimes in the romanji writing) between "r" and "l". Though mostly written as "r", the sound meant here is more of a combination between out "r" and "l", with the tip of the tongue relatively far in front at the gums, just behind the teeth. In case of doubt, it's better to pronounce it as "l".
- The "g" at the beginning of a word is pronounced as it is in the English word "go", but never as it is in "giraffe". In the middle of a word, the "g" is sometimes pronounced nasally, hence something like "ng".
- The "j" is always pronounced like the "j" in "jiffy", "ch" is pronounced like the "ch" in cheese".
- "fu" is the only syllable that is aspirated, hence something like "hu".
- The "z" is spoken as a voiceful s, like in the English "zoo".
- The "u" is commonly spoken very short, almost swallowed.
- Every syllable is pronounced with the exact same length, the intonation relatively monotone.
Sounds complicated, doesn't it? But it's not. Just perk up your ears during the next subtitled anime! Here are some examples (remember that all syllables are equally accented):
Naoko Takeuchi: na-oh-ko ta-ke-oot-chee