Wow, that’s a remarkably similar name. Unfortunately, I couldn’t say for sure whether “fat” would immediately spring to people’s minds, but considering the Japanese love for puns, I suspect it might be likely. Can’t really think of any way to mitigate it – even if you shorten it to アブ, for example, that still sounds like 虻, horsefly, or half of 危ない, dangerous.

All Japanese names mean something – though usually it’s deliberate, and isn’t “fat”. To have a non-Japanese name mean something is rather a coincidence. To think of others that spring to mind, the name Sara, if transliterated as サーラ, is close to 皿 (さら), plate. The transliteration of Joe (ジョー) is an extremely common reading for kanji, and it also a name in Japanese too.

A running joke in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is that the main character’s name – 糸色望 (いとしき・のぞむ) – when the kanji of his surname are compressed into one, the whole name reads as 絶望 (ぜつぼう) meaning “despair”. However, I don’t know whether regular people would notice something like this, or just the occasional person whose mind moves in odd ways (like the sort of person who spots that therapist = the + rapist in English).

I reck it’d be much the same as it is in the West whenever someone’s name rhymes or otherwise resembles an existing word. Some will probably snicker, and some won’t. I think it’s hard to say that “everyone” in Japan will have a laugh at it sounding like “fat”, or that no one will. And if they do, just laugh it off, it’s not likely they’d be trying to deliberately upset you.

As Joel said, the extremely common name “Joe” translates to a ton of words, some of which are not particularly attractive ones (jailer, old man, uselessness, to name a few).

It’s inevitable that someone out there will have a name that sounds like something else, and I’ve seen many a Japanese name that rhymes with something unfortunate in their own (and others’) language.

Japanese do love puns, but I highly doubt that most of them are constantly on the lookout for funny rhyming words to people’s names. And those that do are likely considered every bit as immature as they would be anywhere else.

I used to go to school with a guy named Neil Downward.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure you’d still use the honorific when talking about a person to third parties. Unless it’s a family member (it’s a sign of humility towards others that you lower the status of your own family members).

Since we’re sharing, when I was in my first year of secondary I had a classmate with an unfortunate last name. I won’t reveal the whole name but suffice it to say it contained the word “crappin”. Naturally the other kids weren’t very forgiving to the poor lad. Seemed to be used to it though, as he managed to (sometimes) laugh along.