quick resource for anyone looking to name a japanese OC

justiceforged:

if you go to jisho, it has an entire option to search names based on census data. this means that all the names and readings are actual real names that real people have, which is something that it’s easy to… not accomplish if you’re trying to name a character and aren’t familiar with the language’s naming conventions. with the fact that most names can be written more than one way (even within kanji usage that uses the actual readings of the kanji, and this increases exponentially when you consider the trend of “kira-kira names”, AKA names whose readings and kanji aren’t related) this also means that if you know a name you like the sound of, or you have a meaning you really want to work into your character’s name, you can find it by that as well. plus, a lot of the options are surnames, and some full names come up too, so you can make sure all around that your character has a legit name (and you’ll sound less like a weeaboo. no one wants to sound like a weeaboo.)

all you have to do to search names is put your search term (whether it’s a romaji reading or a kanji character) in the search bar and add #names after it. (you can also use this site to look up anything, since it’s also a general dictionary. this is really helpful if you do want your character to have a name that means something specific and you don’t know the word or kanji in japanese. add #kanji after the english word you’re searching for if you want to look for kanji specifically.)

for example, let’s say i really want my oc’s given name to be “yuno.” all i’d have to do is search “yuno #names”, and look? you get a ton of results with lots of different ways to write it.

or maybe i know that i want my character’s name to have “star” (星) in it. just search “星 #names” and there are pages and pages of results of names that have that kanji in it.

plus, you can use this site in combination with lists of most common given names or surnames in order to find how you’d write those names in kanji (as many english sites listing surnames, in particular, don’t give the kanji at all. however, here’s a site that lists some common surnames with their kanji, and explains a bit about japanese surnames as a whole.) after all, they are the most common, so depending on the setting, a lot of the time it can be much more realistic to have a tanaka (田中) or a yamamoto (山本), for example, than a really unusual name.

have fun!