Unrelated to the knitting:

[camwyn]

I need the help of someone who either knows Japanese or can point me in the direction of a GOOD, ACCURATE name book for Japanese personal and family names. I do my best to give the characters I write names that mean appropriate things, and I fear and distrust the name sources available to me at the moment. I can follow my old tactic of 'grab family names off people that you recognize, then grab personal names from other people you recognize who are of the same gender', but I keep getting the nasty feeling that carelessly doing so will produce a character with a name equivalent to Travis Wojohowitz or St. John Losurdo. I'd rather not do that.

Also I have a few meanings that I'd like to use - if there are Japanese names that correspond to these meanings, that'd be a big help. If you think you can lend me a hand, let me know. I appreciate it, and so do the as-yet unnamed members of the IJMP.

Comments

[arcane.livejournal.com]

This (http://business.baylor.edu/Phil_VanAuken/JapaneseNames.html) isn't a bad site for Japanese names. Also one thing to consider, is that the Japanese are really informal about naming their children. They'll use an existing word in their language or sometimes just make something up if it sounds good. But I think the site I referred you to is a good source of what the Japanese will use to name their children.

Hope it helps!

[penguinzero.livejournal.com]

Actually, that goes counter to what I've heard about Japanese names -- they tend to be fairly careful about name selection, usually picking kanji from a government list of 'name kanji,' and often getting the name analyzed by a Buddhist fortune teller to make sure there's no hidden meanings or bad fortune in it.

I'm willing to help out with names a bit -- and I'll have my history research up tonight, promise!

[arcane.livejournal.com]

That may be an ancient and far more formal way of doing it. The Japanese are far more informal about it now. I've studied Japanese and my sense has told a few humours stories about parents naming their children.

This site (http://japanese.about.com/library/weekly/aa042901a.htm) is a good reference for how the Japanese go about choosing a name.