What's my name in Japanese? (make requests here!)

[rockxy444621]

Hey!!!
I really want to know how to pronounce and spell my name too! My first name is Ismari and last name Quiñones. Oh and I have a question, we latinos use 2 last name, our father's last name followed by our mother's last name, Why in Japan they only use one last name? just like in other countries...

[AmandaDaSilva1393]

Hi!

I was wondering how I should pronounce my name... Amanda DaSilva, I am very use to the American and Portuguese pronunciations of my name, esp. my last name that I can't seem to figure this out. I assume something like Aa-ma-n-da which is usually how my brother's girl Chiaki pronounces. But I can't seem to get my last name. Also I use my middle name a lot... Kay Any help there?

Any help?

[jazzbeans]

アマンダ・ダシルバ (Amanda DaShiruba).
I have seen "Silva" spelt as シウバ (Shiuba) before though.
If 'Kay' is your middle name, that's ケイ (Kei). =)

Hey!!!
I really want to know how to pronounce and spell my name too! My first name is Ismari and last name Quiñones. Oh and I have a question, we latinos use 2 last name, our father's last name followed by our mother's last name, Why in Japan they only use one last name? just like in other countries...

イズマリ・キニョネス/クイニョネス　(Izumari Kinyonesu/Kuinyonesu)
I wasn't sure how to spell your last name in Japanese, just pick whichever one is pronounced more like how you pronounce your last name (obviously)!

I have a question, if you have both your parent's surnames.. and your partner has both his or her parent's surnames too.. which two of those four surnames do you pick for your children?

Hmm, here (in the UK).. traditionally.. you take your father's surname. I'm not sure why, but I guess it stuck (perhaps it was to do with things like children and women being classified as the property of men many years ago - or so I heard). It's not too usual to have both of your parent's surnames but, I know several people who do have both! All the ones I know are short names though, so they sound like one surname. E.g., I know someone called Green-street.

[georg3335]

I'm just realizing a long term dream by getting the possibility of learning japanese.
For achieving an introduction of myself I need an apprehensive translation of my german name: "Georg Lohrer". My first name is not spoken as the english "George", but
G, like in golf;
E, like in entitiy;
OR, like in original;
G, like in go

And my last name "Lohrer" is something special, the 'Lo' is easy like in "Love", the 'h' is only to prolongue the 'o', and the 'rer' will be pronounced with an 'e' as within 'echo'. All consonants and vocals are clearly hearable.
Not the best name for asian language most probably, but that was not taken into account during assignment

Any ideas?

[Jessi]

Hi georg3335-san,

Your name would be something like:

ゲオルグ・ラレア
Ge o ru gu Ra re a

In Japanese, there is no L sound, so it gets changed to an R.
I hope this helps

[redmotman]

how do i say my name in japanese or write it my name is Oba Luke

[rockxy444621]

I have a question, if you have both your parent's surnames.. and your partner has both his or her parent's surnames too.. which two of those four surnames do you pick for your children?

Hmm, here (in the UK).. traditionally.. you take your father's surname. I'm not sure why, but I guess it stuck (perhaps it was to do with things like children and women being classified as the property of men many years ago - or so I heard). It's not too usual to have both of your parent's surnames but, I know several people who do have both! All the ones I know are short names though, so they sound like one surname. E.g., I know someone called Green-street.

The surnames that we pick for our children are the first surname of the father, followed by the first surname of the mother...example...If the father's name is Manuel Rivera Rogriguez, and the mother's name is Lisa Cruz Müller, so the full name of the child will be Marisol or Ismael Rivera Cruz... hope i could answer your question

[jackmolsher8052]

Hi

How would i say my name?

its Jack Molsher

Thanks!

[georg3335]

Hi georg3335-san,
Your name would be something like:
ゲオルグ・ラレア
Ge o ru gu Ra re a
In Japanese, there is no L sound, so it gets changed to an R.
I hope this helps

Thanks a lot. Amazing.

[kcander902478]

This is my first post on this website, I joined yesterday, and already know how to introduce myself. This site is really amazing.

I am interested in how my name would be written and spoken in Japanese. My name is Casey Anderson.

Thanks so much.

[simonkenyon19923601]

Hi just wondering if you could tell me how to say my name in japanese, Simon Kenyon.

Thank you very much

[Inuzuka]

@kcander902478
Again I am not sure, if I meet the proper english pronounciation, but I think, your name should be something like
エンデルソン・ケイシ (enderuson keishi)
sadly there is no 'si' syllable in Japanese, so you have to use 'shi' instead.

If 'Casey' is not pronounced like the 'e' vocal, then it may be
ケイセイ (keisei)

And if the end of 'Casey' is some longer, then you can add a ー at the end, i. e. ケイシー (keishii)

@simonkenyon19923601
Again I am not sure, if I meet the proper english pronounciation, but I think, your name should be something like
ケンヨン・サイモン (kenyon saimon)

[33orion77]

Hello,
I too wonder how you would pronouce my name in japanese. I have a french name. It is Etienne Sauvé. It should be pronounced a bit like this: A-T-N ( Etienne) Sovay ( Sauvé)

thank you

[Inuzuka]

A short notice, before I answer: You all are user of JapanesePod101, isn´t it? How about learning this really simple rules by yourself using the material on this website?

All what you need is a name and the knowledge, how it should be pronounced, some knowledge about the pronounciation of your own language, a katakana table, some experience about some common japanese pronounciation rules. I. e. it is helpful to know, when the Japanese don´t speak a vocal (in German we say 'to swallow a vocal' - how do you describe this in english?). Some examples:

1. except of the five vowels and 'n' there are only syllables in Japanese, you have to replace consonants with proper syllables, i. e. german 'Arbeit', which have an 'r' in the middle and ends with a 't' becomes 'arubaito' in Japanese (which already exists in Japanese, but with the different meaning 'side job')
   
2. the 'u' and 'i' sound is often omitted, especially in 'su', 'ku' and 'shi', i. e. 好き"suki" = "s'ki", たくさん"takusan" = "tak'san" or 山下'Yamashita' = "Yamash'ta". So you can use them nearly like the accordant consonants 's' 'k' and 'sh' i. e. 'restaurant' becames レストラン 'resutoran' pronounced "res'toran", 'actor' becomes アクター 'akutaa', pronounced "ak'taa" and 'Ashton' would become アシュトン "Ash'ton" in Japanese
3. 's' is mostly pronounced hard, as in 'soft', which is mostly no problem for english words, but in German we have often a soft 's', pronounced something like the english 'z' (softer), so for german words we have to use often the Japanese 'z' line (ザ'za', ヂ'zi', ズ'zu', ゼ'ze', ゾ'zo')
4. 'z' is pronounced soft as in - sorry, I don´t know an example in English for now
5. for longer vowels you can use 'ー'
6. some combinations are not available in Japanese, i. e. si or ti, you have to replace it with 'shi' or 'chi' - the pronunciation is slightly different, but no way to change this
7. Japanese are creative, so there are new creations transcribing european words, i. e. ウェ'we'、ヴェ've'、ヴィ'vi'、ウィ'wi'、ティ'ti' (wiki) (sorry, this particular information in this article is not available in English, search for 'Erweiterte Katakana' and you´ll find an interesting table)
8. there is no 'l' in Japanese. The 'r' is pronounced in the middle of 'r' and 'l', so you have to use this line (ラ'ra', リ'ri', ル'ru', レ're', ロ'ro'), i. e. 'Rondon' ロンドンfor 'London'
9. ...

There are some more rules and such a 'transcription table' is different, depending on from which language you want to transcript.

Then you can transcript your own name often better than japanese textbooks, believe me. There are many errors in the way, european words are transcribed into Japanese (at least in my language). I. e. in some japanese textbooks for German they transcribed the word for 'exercise', which is in german 'üben' (ueben) with 'yuuben'/ユーベン - which is wrong in my eyes (and for my ears ). Because the japanese 'u' is likely the same as the german 'ü' (ue), they can simply use 'uuben'/ウーベン, which meets our pronounciation much better (explaining the reason in english is too difficult for me, sorry ).

Naturally, some experience transcribing names into japanese would help. I can write my own language completely in katakana, helping japanese learners to proper pronounce the german language. So take some words of your own language and transcribe it - it is fun! And native english speakers have some benefits, because most of the nowadays available katakana words are transcribed from amerikan english - so you have many examples to work on.

All the needed stuff is available on JapanesePod101s Learningcenter and all you have to know about pronounciation are described in the lessons - so my advice: Use all the great stuff here, guys!

And last but not least, there are many ressources available in the internet, i. e.
http://www.btinternet.com/~ted.power/l1japanese.html
http://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/english-in-japanese.html
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japanese/Pronunciation

But to answer your question, my suggestion is:

ソーウェー・エティエン (soouee et'ien) or
ソーヴェー・エティエン (soovee et'ien)

It´s a french name, isn´t it? French is quite difficult, I think, because there are many syllables, which are not available in Japanese.

1. 'ti' in 'Etienne' is not availabe, so you have to replace it by 'te' and a small 'i'
2. I think, the 'e' at the end of 'Etienne' is not pronounced, isn´t it? that´s why I end only with 'n'
3. 'va' or rather 've' is not available, so you have two choices: 1st is ヴぇ(very soft 'be') 2nd is ウェ('ue' like in 'スウェーデン語'/'sueedengo = swedish)
4. to lengthen the last vowel of Sauvay, you should use 'ー'

[33orion77]

Domo !
very interresting guide lines!
thanks again