Hi! My name in English is a common noun, let’s use “River” as an example. Someone told me that introducing myself as the translation of my name rather than the transliteration was disrespectful and Japanese people would not like it, especially since I don’t speak Japanese. I thought that since I can directly translate my name, it would be more considerate to learn how to say it in their language. In my opinion, it’s not different from a Spanish speaker named Juan choosing to introduce themselves as John.
We’ll be in Tokyo later this year and I just want to make sure I’m respectful during our time there 🙂
Edit: I should’ve mentioned that there is a Japanese equivalent of my first name, aka a given name that has the same meaning of my name. I’m unsure of how common it is.
I’ll also be clear that I don’t speak a word of Japanese. Were im from, it’s fairly common to translate foreign names into existing English names if possible. If it’s weird for a Japanese person to hear, I won’t do it
Edit 2: thanks so much! I won’t be using the translation of my name. I’ll keep the post up though because these are super interesting conversations!
by DearAndraste