Creating a name with mixed and/or rare kanji readings

[Sp3ctre18]

Hello everyone,

I've been working on creating a Japanese version of my username for online stuff and a sort of Japanese debut in music. It is 3 syllables, and I used the fantastic Kanji Dictionary at saiga-jp.com to search all the kanji with readings that correspond to the 3 syllables, as well as the two possible 2-syllable readings. Then I did a nice tedious job of noting down the meanings and doing some mixing-and-matching.

It was cool to see that I can come up with 2 usernames; one for an arrogant personality, and one for a humble personality (meaning, I get the kanji combinations to mean things like master of, or humble servant). I like that.

However, the kinds of readings for the kanji to match up to my desired readings can be anything from normal on or kun readings, nanori, rare readings, or the readings used for the verb! (without the actual ru, mu, gu, etc. verb endings, of course.)

I'd like to know how problematic that would be. I don't care if people won't know how to read it; that will be part of the initial mystery and it will be fun to see the guesses and attempts to find hints. Is that ok? I want to be sure I'm not doing something that will be seen as just TOTALLY wrong. I hope not; it's a NAME after all, so I THINK (hope?) I won't have a problem.

Thank you very much! I hope some expert here can help!

PS: This extra question is merely a planning-ahead question: if you think I really should not do this, can I get away with it by separating the kanji? Or maybe you would always recommend this instead? I.e., Instead of my name being like [] [] [] 3, what if I did []・[]・[]・3? (There is nothing wrong with your fonts; I AM using brackets instead of putting kanji in, haha).

[Javizy]

Is the dictonary just a standard kanji dictionary? Not all of them are used in names, and some would look quite strange. I don't know anything about creating names, but if you wanted to appeal to the Japanese public, you can't go wrong with romaji or katakana. You only need to look at signs, slogans, company/brand names, commercials, magazines, fashion and so on. Kanji doesn't have much "cool" factor, although 一番 and 侍 T-shirts appeal to gaijin

[Sp3ctre18]

Thanks for the reply. I know on these boards it's hard to see, but I actually included a link to the dictionary I was using, but here it is again: http://www.saiga-jp.com/kanji_dictionary.html (now I think it should show up underlined); it's the first one that pops up when you Google "kanji dictionary." I've actually recently found another online dictionary that seems to list even more nanori readings, so I may look at that, I don't know.

You make some good points, so it's good to see them, but I am aware of them, although it's probably still good for me to keep them in mind. It really isn't for the cool factor, but instead for the extra meaning I can get with kanji. I like adding many layers of meanings to things, and the kanji combinations I'm coming up with allow me to create a dual personality that can tie in well with what I want to do, while still linking to my common username which you see now.

If I can make the names out of all nanori readings, I figure I'll be ok. At the moment though, I'm just concerned with how some of my currect combination would mix nanori with normal readings, such as the verb or adjective readings.

For example, one possible kanji for me to use is 全, with the pronunciation in 全て. However, instead of "subete," I would only use "sube." Part of me feels like that just won't work because as far as I know, the only time you read "sube" is when you mean 全て. That's like the logic that's bugging me, but I really don't know what's game when it comes to names - especially non-standard made-up ones!

[taikutsu]

I can tell you right now that 全 will typically be pronounced ぜん.

This is kind of something that you have to get a feel for after reading a lot of Japanese names, but I would actually recommend trying to find ateji versions of names with the sounds you want, so you can actually see what works.