名前に込められた意味とは？日米ネーミング事情と番組タイトルの由来

Hello, welcome back to CrossDog Podcast. I'm Tomia. Hi, I'm Andrea. This episode's idea came from listener Kiroka-san. Kiroka, that's a cute name. That's a really cute name. Her icon picture is a frog. Oh, I love it! Kiroka. That's adorable. Anyway, in Japan, we chose a baby's name based on the meaning of the kanji or the number of strokes. How do people decide names in places like America? Also, Japan has example names like Yamada Taro and Yamada Hanako. Do other countries have common names like that? Yes, we do. That's a really good question. This is a cultural difference question, which I love these. American people, in general, just choose a name they like. It doesn't necessarily have a basis in the meaning. Although, American names or English names do have meanings. So, for example, my name is Andrea. Andrea is traditionally a man's name in Europe. And it means master of the house. Only in America is it a woman's name. And usually in Europe, it's either Andrea or Andreas with an ass on the end. Different, yeah, we have like meanings. But, in general, yeah, people just choose a name they like for their baby. A lot of English names are based on names in the Bible, the Christian Bible. Okay. So, things like John and William, sort of very common names are because these are mentioned the Bible. Yes, I heard it. Many names came from the Bible. From Christianity, yes. The way Japanese choose based on the meaning of this kanji. Yes, yes, kanji meanings. The meaning of my Tomo is smart. Okay. It doesn't really describe my personality, but it is what it is. It is what it is. Yeah, it means start beginning. Okay. I'm not sure. That kanji is typically used only for men, right? Yes. But the Tomo could be like Tomacor. Tomo, yeah. Tomo can be. Yeah. Use for women. Okay. For both men and women. Okay. But yes, for men only, I think. Right. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I think, yeah. I think the kanji situation is very interesting. And, you know, I have two sons. And so, when we were trying to think of names for them, we did have to take into consideration the kanji. I wanted my sons to have a kanji and also a name that sounded English so that they could kind of transition between their American family and also their Japanese family without too much like change, you know, and also like when you spell the name on the American passport and the Japanese passport, the Domaji would be the same. So, could not be a name with an R or an L had to have a kanji and had to sound somewhat English. So, really a lot of things to consider when you're naming a child, yeah. Yeah. Since I don't have a child, you know, I don't know how difficult it is to decide your baby's name. I'm looking at my brother and he has two babies now. One is Nina. One is, I forgot her name. Oh my God. Gotcha, baby. Nice name. Well, it's her name. Nina is a cute name, though. That's a very, that sounds English. That sounds like could be international. Yeah. Nina and something, anyway, it's very difficult. I don't know. Nina sounds like a western name. It does, yeah. It sounds, yeah. It sounds European. Yeah. Some kanji character combination, very similar to western names. Yeah, yeah. That could work. That's the kind of name like good, co-either way, which would be great for me if I had had a girl, but I had boys. Oh, right, right. Yeah. That's a nice name, though. Yes. One more complicated matrix is the number of strokes. Yeah. Older generation, they really, really worried. I mean, they are. They care about it, yeah. They care about it. They care about it. Yeah, my husband's father is like that, very superstitious, very old-fashioned, had to check the strokes of everybody's name and combination with the last name and, yeah, it was just endless, endless caring about things. So for non-native Japanese viewers, strokes in kanji, meaning simple one, take only one stroke. Right. Yeah, complicated one takes, you know, sometimes 20 or more. Yeah, but like you have to think about two, like children, when you have a child, your children will start learning how to write their own name, probably when they're like in Hoi Kuen or Yochi-en. If you go to a good Hoi Kuen, they'll teach your child how to write their name in kanji. But in general, people start learning how to write kanji, what, Shogako. But if your child has a really complicated kanji and they can't write their own name, that's kind of Kai-sou, that's kind of sad. Yeah. So we give our kids easy kanji to write. Okay, that's good. Not so many strokes. Also, because I'm not Japanese, I can write kanji, but I have to be able to write it quickly because you have to write their name five bazillion times in lifetime, so it has to be something that mom and dad don't get sick of writing. You know, I'm sick of writing my name. You name it a lot of strokes, the Tomo has a lot of strokes. So recently, I write my name in Hiragana. Okay. For example, to apply an event. Okay. I sent my name with Hiragana. Okay, that's good. Because it's easy. Okay. I write your name with katakana, just because my name is katakana, and I'm like, people don't need to know everything about us. Right, right, right. It's like a little bit too private sometimes. Right, right, right. They don't have to know exactly what your kanji is, so I just write it in katakana to keep it kind of vague and to coordinate with my name too. Yeah. Yeah. So if it's not an offshore, so I write my name in Hiragana. Ah, yeah. It's easy. And then people don't have to worry about. Right. Just go out there. How do I read this, right? They know exactly. Yes, yes, yes. The other part of Kirokasa's question was, do other countries have common names like Yamada Taro? Yes, we do. John Smith. John Smith? Yeah. Betty Smith, although, yeah, that's kind of the name of the jeans company, right? Yes. Yes. It's near my parents' home. Yeah. Mary Miller. Mary Miller. That kind of common name is like Mary and John Smith, Brown Miller. These are very common last names. Maybe I'm watching too many Western movies. John Dole. John Dole. Yeah. John Dole and Jane Dole, we use for people who you don't, like, for example, if the police find a dead body and they don't know who it is, they'll assign John Dole or Jane Dole if it's a woman. That's like, if we don't know someone's identity, we use Dole, DOE. Yeah, just a temporal name, right? Yeah, temporary name until they find out who it is. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. That's usually for dead people. Sorry. Okay. Sorry, but yeah, that's usually for dead people, so they don't know the identity of. And usually, we don't have this typical temporal name. Oh, really? I mean, Yamada Taro is the one used to be, but I kind of feel like it's changing, you know, people, companies are getting more fructible in this temporal name. Yeah, it's also kind of localized, like actually, because we're in Okayama, the kind of temporary name in Okayama for, like, this kind of, like, very common theme is Mamotaro. Mamotaro? Mamotaro or Hanako, Hanako, Mamotaro or something like that instead of the Yamada or Suzuki, they'll use Mamotaro. Yes, yes. So that's what I have seen it. Yeah, that's cute. I think there's also, like, the issue of what is popular at the moment for Americans and Japanese too, like this Hayati, right? Names that are popular for this generation. Yes. And so that kind of changes with every, you know, five or ten years. Yeah. Really Americans like really weird names, like what? Well, like names of countries, like Egypt, Jordan, or, you know, Israel, or, you know, they give their children names like that. There was a famous basketball player named Kobe Bryant. his parents apparently liked him. the city of Kobe, Japan. So they named him after the city of Kobe. Really? Yes, but we pronounce it Kobe in English. So people don't really get the connection right away. But yeah, apparently he's named after the city of Kobe. Oh, I didn't know that Kobe Ryan. He was very popular. He unfortunately died in an airplane helicopter accident. Yeah, it's really too bad because he was great. Okay, I didn't know that. Yeah, so there's like place names that are popular. Just like whatever's in popular, like certain, not recently, but maybe 15 years ago or so. Girls would be given like last names as their first name, for example, like Harrison or like like things that it sounds like someone's last name. It's not very cute. It doesn't sound feminine. Okay. Those are popular. Yeah, I'm not sure what's popular now, actually. Not sure yet. Yeah, I haven't been back and I don't have any really young people in my family. So I don't really know what's in style right now, but yeah, Japan has high ID word, like, high ID names. Yeah, we call it Kirakira name. Yeah. And I haven't really heard Kirakira name for a long time. No, I think it's kind of going out of fashion, isn't it? I think so. Yeah. And a few of them that have given Kirakira name are trying to change their name. Really? Yeah. And these people sometimes, you know, come up on the documentary videos. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So, oh, that's interesting. Because it's inconvenient. I'm sure. Yeah. For your work. I'm sure. Yeah. Like, if your kanji is really an unusual reading that doesn't, it's not a typical reading. Yeah, that'd be inconvenient. Right? Yeah, I know a few people in Japan, younger people than me, much younger people who have Kirakira names. Yeah. They're kind of cute, but yeah, it's like, it's kind of like, what was their mother thinking? What was she thinking when she gave you that name? I had no idea. Yeah. But it's really, really difficult to give a name to your child. Yeah, it is. It is. But when it comes to giving a name to your business, Andra-san is really good at this. I'm not that good. You know who came up this crosstalk name idea? Well, we thought of it together, kind of, but someone said recently, oh, that's a, that's a weird name for a business. I'm like, is it? Okay. But Andra-san came up this crosstalk idea. Kind of. It has a negative meaning sometimes though. Oh, why? I think like in the beginning when telephones were first invented, crosstalk was like when you had to call the operator and asked to be connected with someone. Sometimes like you would hear someone else's conversation. I think that's called crosstalk. But when I thought of this name, it was like cross communication, crossing cultures, talking about things across different cultures, you know, different languages. So I thought of that concept. Okay. Yeah. That was my idea. Okay. I thought this is a great idea. Thank you. And actually, after we started this podcasting, I found the name of a crosstalk has another meaning, which is talking to a god. Oh, really? Yeah. I saw some, that's creepy. I saw some Christianity podcast, podcasters are using, trying to use this crosstalk name in their podcast. Yeah. There's another podcast named crosstalk. I haven't listened to it. It maybe is that one. Oh, that's creepy. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're not that one. We're not the god people. Oh, my goodness. No, I didn't know that. Yeah. No, I did see that there's another podcast named crosstalk. Well, we're not that. No, we're not that. We're definitely not that. Yeah, I understand how it's really, really good sense of giving a name. Really? Yes. I only have confidence in naming my pets. That's all I like to do. I like naming my pets. And I like to give my pets actually the names of people. My all of my pets right now do not have human names, but in the past, all of my pets have had human names. And usually I base them on some novel that I read and I like the character or a writer who's writing I like. Okay. So I'm just curious. What are some names that you guys like doesn't necessarily have to be for your pet, but just in general. So I'll give an example. My previous dog's name was Jane. And I really love the name Jane. Okay. And so I when I got the dog, I was living here in Japan. And I thought, well, if I ever have a child, I wanted to name my daughter Jane, but can't name a daughter Jane in Japan, because it just doesn't work. So I'll name my dog Jane instead. Just because I like the name. But what are some names that you guys like? Okay. This is the toughest question I've ever heard. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Anyway, that's all for this episode. All right. We're signing off bringing you English your way every week. People listening and keep shining. Bye.