Help with Japanese name choices and meanings.

[EastCoastDrifter]

I don't know if this is the proper place to put this thread in but, I see nowhere else to put it so forgive me. Mods, feel free to put this somewhere else if you do know.

Ok, for anyone fluent enough in Japanese, I'm asking this because my knowledge on Japanese naming is very limited. I'm currently writing a novel draft and I would like some insight onto the Japanese names I've chosen to use for my characters. The main character's name in my novel is "Hiroshi Akezuki", and I've chosen this name to represent my character's personality. However I'm dubious about the name "Akezuki" because there's no actual records of this name existing, and I've made this name up simply by combining two already existing names "Ake" (bright) and "Zuki" (moon). I don't know if this is the appropriate thing to do with Japanese names by combining them to make one name but if not, please let me know. Of course, if you find the meanings of the names wrong, please feel free to recommend me some more meaningful ones if you like. It would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Edited November 17, 2016 by KonpekiUmi

[Asonn]

if you don't know enough about Japan, or how their naming system works, why not use English names??? believe me.. it's even for the better good. People nowadays don't want to read that one OEVN out of thousands that uses a Japanese setting and names for no reason at all. 

[Nosebleed]

 For a name using the reading Ake from 明 and zuki drom 月  sounds rather odd. 

If you don't know names just pick a more standard name. It might be impossible to use certain characters together. 

From the characters you have you could do something more common like Aki (明) or Aya (明也) or Hazuki (葉月) 

And like Asonn said you may want to ditch Japanese names altogether. Is your character actually Japanese? If not then you could just go with a western name. 

[Barktooth]

Just name him Yamada Taro.

[EastCoastDrifter]

48 minutes ago, Nosebleed said:

 For a name using the reading Ake from 明 and zuki drom 月  sounds rather odd. 

If you don't know names just pick a more standard name. It might be impossible to use certain characters together. 

From the characters you have you could do something more common like Aki (明) or Aya (明也) or Hazuki (葉月) 

And like Asonn said you may want to ditch Japanese names altogether. Is your character actually Japanese? If not then you could just go with a western name. 

My main character is actually Japanese so in this case, a Japanese name makes sense. But if you want, I can change him into a westerner to bypass the Japanese names altogether, because I figured I was doing something wrong when I chose the name.

Edited November 17, 2016 by KonpekiUmi

[Dergonu]

I used this a couple of times when I needed some characters for my book.

http://www.springhole.net/writing_roleplaying_randomators/japanesenames.htm

You are probably better off just using actual names and just mixing them a bit to get something unique, randomizing them with this, or at least checking that the name does indeed exist on some webiste. I mean, I doubt people would actually care much about it if the names were a bit strange, (half of the people reading whatever this is might not know Japanese, and won't notice if the name is odd in the first place,) but if you want accuracy and what not, then its better to be safe than sorry.

[EastCoastDrifter]

31 minutes ago, Dergonu said:

I used this a couple of times when I needed some characters for my book.

http://www.springhole.net/writing_roleplaying_randomators/japanesenames.htm

You are probably better off just using actual names and just mixing them a bit to get something unique, randomizing them with this, or at least checking that the name does indeed exist on some webiste. I mean, I doubt people would actually care much about it if the names were a bit strange, (half of the people reading whatever this is might not know Japanese, and won't notice if the name is odd in the first place,) but if you want accuracy and what not, then its better to be safe than sorry.

Ah, many thanks for showing me this. I had no idea that such a thing existed.

Edited November 17, 2016 by KonpekiUmi

[Clephas]

Clephas was originally a name I came up with for a character in a story I was writing...  and I also came up with a lot of others.  Making up names is a lot more fun than obsessing over the 'right' names.  lol

[EastCoastDrifter]

Alright, thanks everyone for your input. I now have a proper name for my main character and I'll reveal it once I post my novel draft on here.

[Valmore]

If the main character is Japanese it makes sense, right? I thing I'm working on is set in America but has a Japanese girl moving from Japan to America, so obviously it would make sense for her to have a Japanese name.

[EastCoastDrifter]

57 minutes ago, Valmore said:

If the main character is Japanese it makes sense, right? I thing I'm working on is set in America but has a Japanese girl moving from Japan to America, so obviously it would make sense for her to have a Japanese name.

Yeah. He's one of few Japanese characters I have planned for my novel. The rest of the other characters will mostly be westerners in order to make name selection easier.

[Okarin]

Well, I only know characters, especially in names, aren't always read straight. There are at least two readings for a given kanji: "onyomi" and "kunyomi". One of those is used when the kanji stands alone, the other is used when the character is combined with more (so it's one, two syllables at best). Also one of those is the Chinese original reading. But I forgot which is which.

This should help-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji

If you want to look up kanji, I can only recommend:

http://nihongo.monash.edu/cgi-bin/wwwjdic?1B

Edited November 18, 2016 by Okarin