Advice, tools, and other goodies for writers

[robkelk]

Two pages for those of us who write, and thus need to name, original Japanese characters.


20 Most Popular Japanese Girl Names And What They Actually Mean

Most popular Japanese girls’ names are written in kanji characters, though there’s a recent trend of hiragana being used . The following listicle is arranged from 1 to 3-character names. 1-character names are more classic, 2-character names are more commonplace, while 3-character names are rarer but cooler.

("recent" is as of 29 June 2021.)


List of common Japanese surnames

Officially, among Japanese names there are 291,129 different Japanese surnames (姓, sei), as determined by their kanji, although many of these are pronounced and romanized similarly. Conversely, some surnames written the same in kanji may also be pronounced differently. The top 10 surnames cover approximately 10% of the population, while the top 100 surnames cover slightly more than 33%.

If I'm reading these lists correctly, 佐藤 凛 – Satō Rin – is the Japanese equivalent of Jane Smith.