OneTaskBy Tim King · Updated
Japanese Name Generator
Japanese Names in Romaji, Kanji and Kana, Surname First
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How the Japanese Name Generator (With Kana And Kanji) works
This japanese name generator mixes real naming patterns into new names. Generate Japanese names in Japanese order, family name first, in romaji, in kanji, or both paired together: Sato Yui 佐藤結衣, Tanaka Haruto 田中陽翔, Kobayashi Keiko 小林恵子. Modern gives the names of today's children, Classic the -ko and -o names of the postwar generation, and every romaji name is matched to the kanji, or the hiragana, that actually spells it. Choose female, male or either and generate up to a hundred.
Japanese name generator: choosing a name that fits
A Japanese name is a family name followed by a given name, and both are written in kanji, the Chinese characters, with the given name sometimes in hiragana for a softer look, as in Sakura さくら. The family names are place descriptions almost without exception, because commoners chose them from their surroundings when the Meiji government required surnames in 1875: Tanaka is the middle of the rice field, Yamamoto the foot of the mountain, Nakamura the middle village, Kobayashi the small wood, Matsumoto the foot of the pine, Inoue above the well, Hayashi the wood, Mori the forest, Ishikawa the stony river. The commonest, Sato, Suzuki, Takahashi, Ito, Watanabe, are older clan names spread by the samurai and priesthood. Japan has over a hundred thousand surnames, far more than China or Korea, but the top ten still cover a tenth of the population.
Given names show their generation more clearly than in any Western country. Nearly every woman born between 1920 and 1980 has a name ending in -ko, child, Keiko, Yoko, Kazuko, Michiko, Sachiko, and men of the same decades carry the one- and two-character names of virtue, Hiroshi, Takeshi, Akira, Makoto, or the numbered sons, Ichiro, Jiro, Saburo, first, second, third son. The Classic option gives these. Since the 1990s the fashion has reversed completely: girls are Yui, Aoi, Hina, Rin, Mei, Himari, boys are Haruto, Sota, Yuto, Minato, Ren, Hinata, and the kanji are chosen for beauty and sound more than for the standard reading, so that 陽翔 Haruto, sun and soar, is a modern invention with no traditional pronunciation. Nature is everywhere in the new names, Sora sky, Sakura cherry blossom, Aoi hollyhock, Kaito sea, and the government publishes annual rankings that the Modern lists follow.
Romaji here uses the Hepburn system without macrons, as passports do, so Sato and Ito rather than Satō and Itō. Japanese people writing in English usually reverse to Western order, Yui Sato, though the government has asked since 2019 that the Japanese order be kept in official use, as it always has been for Chinese and Korean names. For those two, the Chinese and Korean pages; for the names of anime and manga, which follow these rules but exaggerate them, the anime section.
FAQ
Which part is the family name?
The first. Sato Yui is Ms Sato, given name Yui. Japanese people often reverse it in English, Yui Sato, so both orders appear in Western sources; documents, newspapers and speech in Japan always put the family name first.
Why do older women's names end in -ko?
The suffix -ko means child and was aristocratic until the Meiji era, when commoners adopted it, so that by 1950 over eighty per cent of girls had a -ko name. It fell from fashion in the 1980s and is now rare among children, which makes it a reliable marker of age.
Are the kanji readings standard?
For the Classic names, yes. For the Modern names, often not: parents choose kanji for meaning and assign a reading they like, so the same characters can be read several ways and the same sound written many ways. The pairings here use the commonest reading for each name in the annual rankings.
Why do Japanese surnames describe landscapes?
Because when surnames became compulsory in 1875 most families named themselves after where they lived, the rice field, the mountain foot, the wood, the well. Kanji for field, mountain, river, tree and village recur throughout the surname stock.
Can I use these names for fiction or test data?
Yes. They are combinations of ordinary names and cannot be owned. Sato and Suzuki are each carried by nearly two million people, so a common combination will coincide with real people; a name that will be attached to something public deserves a quick search.
See also: all Culture & Language tools, People, Fantasy & RPG, Sci-fi, Online & Social, Business & Brand, Places & Things.
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