I need help with my name

[firebird83675689]

Hey everybody, I just created an account to ask for this. I'm a half blooded Okinawan American, who currently serves in the USAF, but I know almost no Japanese, instead I know two other languages. I have a maybe interesting problem, My name is 剣 in kanji, as what my mom picked, but my katakana is アキラ, I have no idea on any of the meanings, because I get far too varying results, like Sword in the kanji, and Fall and Bright for the others. I don't know if I was given a ryukyuan variant, or really anything, Please Help!

[community.japanese]

アキラsan,
hajimemashite!

Wow, that's an interesting case.
To be honest, I've never seen anyone with name of あきら with the kanji 剣; I didn't even think
it was possible to read this kanji that way.
When it comes to kanji for names, you can choose kanji not strictly according to their readings.
It means, you can choose kanji and "make people read" the way you decide.
We call it 当て字 and most of the cases we cannot imagine how to read when we see kanji.

I assume that your mother wanted both あきら as name and 剣 in your name.
剣 means sword. The meaning of あきら can vary depending on the kanji you give, but the most often
they have "bright" in their meanings.

Hope this helps!

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com