Another question for Stan?

[Guest]

Sakai-sensei; I am thinking of doing a story with Kenichi as the "hero" and I was wondering...what is his full name?{ likr Usagi's is Miyamoto Usagi.}

[Robert Wetherelt]

SORRY!!! that last entry was me. I forgot to log in.{D'OH!!!}But, the question still stands. Domo,arigato. Ja,mata.

[Todd Shogun]

I think he answered this in a previous post. He never gave Kenichi a family name. Perhaps it's time Stan made one up?

[Robert Wetherelt]

Ok...maybe I'll just have to make one up myself.

[Stan Sakai]

I never gave Kenichi a family name. Jotaro, as his son, would have the same name.

Honestly, I never gave it much thought. But then, I never had a need for it. I try to get by without using too many names because foreign names can get confusing to American readers, so I generally use given names or titles like Lord So-and-so.

[digulla]

Honestly, I never gave it much thought. But then, I never had a need for it. I try to get by without using too many names because foreign names can get confusing to American readers, so I generally use given names or titles like Lord So-and-so.

Yeah, many of my test readers complained about this, too ("Can't you give them proper names? Norijiki??? Who would call someone like that?" etc.pp.)

Stan, if you want, then I can add a name generator for you to the Dojo (every time you click on a link, it would spit out a couple of male and female given names and some family names. With Kanji and all.

And if you would ever happen to forget one of the names, you could always use our character section for reference

[ziritrion]

That'd be really interesting. Are you talking about creating a database with lots of Japanese names with their Kanji? One of the things that I'm most impressed about Usagi Yojimbo is that any given name will hardly be used again to name another character (and that has been going on for almost 20 years, which is quite an impressive achievement, if you ask me). Perhaps there should be some system to warn when a created name has been used before on UY... Example: "Hmm, let's make a new name for this cool new chick I just made... I know! I'll go to the name generator! *CREATING A NEW NAME...* *NEW NAME: ATSUKO - WARNING!: Atsuko was the name of one of the characters on "Frost & Fire in UY book 5, would you like to create another name?* " Now that'd be nice .

Or perhaps the name generator would just grab some random Japanese words and just stick them together (Okii Ashiyubi comes to mind). Although there should be some criteria to generate the names; maybe the name "Bakataro" or something the like for a lord's name wouldn't be appropriate enough...

[takematsu]

One of the problems we face in North America is we're fairly insulated from other cultures (less in Canada than the US, but we're still a bit naif). I wouldn't worry about people rubbishing names they don't recognize in stories with a non-Western European setting, since those who do usually won't be too interested in stories of that sort-- of course, there is Samurai Jack and NEC's Paul the Samurai, but those are abberations. One doesn't want to go too crazy, of course; "All bowed low as the new shogun entered-- mightly Lord Umitokabutomushi!"

There's a pretty good article on Japanese naming practices at http://sengokudaimyo.com/Miscellany/Miscellany.html ; you have to go to "names" in the nav bar. [Yay edit feature-- I should have mentioned that this site is primarily aimed at the Society for Creative Anachronism, so there's some mention of being able to register names. That's naught to do with Japan.]

[Stan Sakai]

That'd be really interesting. Are you talking about creating a database with lots of Japanese names with their Kanji? One of the things that I'm most impressed about Usagi Yojimbo is that any given name will hardly be used again to name another character (and that has been going on for almost 20 years, which is quite an impressive achievement, if you ask me). Perhaps there should be some system to warn when a created name has been used before on UY... Example: "Hmm, let's make a new name for this cool new chick I just made... I know! I'll go to the name generator! *CREATING A NEW NAME...* *NEW NAME: ATSUKO - WARNING!: Atsuko was the name of one of the characters on "Frost & Fire in UY book 5, would you like to create another name?* " Now that'd be nice .

Or perhaps the name generator would just grab some random Japanese words and just stick them together (Okii Ashiyubi comes to mind). Although there should be some criteria to generate the names; maybe the name "Bakataro" or something the like for a lord's name wouldn't be appropriate enough...

I do have a Japanese name book that lists common given names, their meaning, and the kanji. I sometimes refer to a historical dictionary for family names.

I sometimes create names appropriate to stories. Atsuko means "hot child", and her counterpart Koriko means "ice child". I know most people would not know that but, for me, it was a way to further show the extreme differences between these two.

I do use some names over again. "Jiro" is a really common name that I use for a lot of peasants.

[ziritrion]

Thank you for the tip. I actually read that story about the meaning of Atsuko and Koriko's names somewhere in the web (I don't remember where, though; perhaps here in the Dojo, while browsing around). It's an interesting way of stressing the differences between those two characters (although people who don't know Japanese would'nt probably notice, as you said).

Has anyone checked out the webpage that takematsu pointed out? It's worth checking it out, it's got great contents (It also explains the differences between a tachi and a katana that I asked for some time ago... ).

[digulla]

That'd be really interesting. Are you talking about creating a database with lots of Japanese names with their Kanji?

Actually, I would just put the Japanese Name Database from Jim Breen's WWWJDIC Japanese-English Dictionary Server into a new form. But since Stan already has a dictionary, he can simply leaf through the pages and stop at a random point to make up a name.

I just noticed that Stan is very precise when it comes to the art but slacky when it comes to names. Most characters have only given names; the family names are missing. I noticed that when I overworked the character section of the dojo and during writing my story. Pau simply couldn't correctly address Kenichi as well as Jotaro later What Stan does works for comics but in a book, it's a problem when you can't really distinguish between the ways to address someone in a formal scene and in private.

In a comic, you have only the small space of a speach-bubble, so wasting space for family names doesn't make sense, I guess.