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Hi everyone, I was wondering how one would go about translating their name in Japanese. Sometimes I see words in hiragana like Mr.Miller = ミラーさん and I’m thinking that I would not have guessed it that way.
My name is Mathieu Groulx. I’m french Canadian so it’s sounds French. The English version would be Matthew.
I once had a Japanese roommate in India. I asked him about my name and he broke it down in the two
syllables ma & tsu and came up with two kanjis. If I recall right, one was for dew (tsuyu) which matches with the end of my name in French. The other would be MA and there seems to be a couple kanjis that go along with that. How would one pick them from our standpoint?Thanks for the tips!
Good way to find out how to say your name in Japanese is to go to Wikipedia and find the page of some famous figure with the same name (or just the page of the name itself, sometimes they have those), then go to the side bar and click 「日本語」 to go to the Japanese version of the page and see how they spell it there. Won’t always work if your name is too uncommon or if there’s simply not a Japanese version of the page.
The Wikipedia method tells me your first name can be pronounced マチュー. As for your last name, Wikipedia doesn’t have the answer, but might I suggest グルー? I actually had to look up the regular pronunciation of that name as I’d never seen it before haha. Also, did you know that if you Google “Groulx japanese”, your Pinterest (assuming it’s yours) is the 7th result? :D
Foreigner names don’t really have proper kanji equivalents so I wouldn’t worry about it.
I’m fairly sure kanji for names are more of an art than a science.
So if you find cool kanji that fit the pronunciation of your name, you can choose them yourself. I would say use a place like lang-8 afterwards to make sure it will work for your name like you think it does.
You don’t want to pick something like: Raging Bear for your name only to find out that the combo you used is more commonly read as menstruating weasel or something. :P
Thank a bunch for the tips! Wiki is indeed a good idea. Allthough I tend to agree with Aikibujin that this kanji thing as some clever Japanese artsy profound meaning to it. As for picking the right kanji, you are right, looking up the online dictionary I see that the particle MA has three interesting options.
間 : space; room; time; pause
魔 : demon; devil; evil spirit; evil influence;
真 : just; right; due (east); pure; genuine; trueThe last one is a prefix but I would tend to avoid the evil spirit one for my name!
menstruating weasel as gotta to be the best though. ;)Thank again
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