wherein Liz has fun with her total ignorance of Japanese

[edenfalling]

There is something addictive about playing with online translation dictionaries, even if they are rather incomplete in interesting ways. Also, I have a weird habit of inventing and naming about ten times more background characters than will ever appear in my stories (well, okay, sometimes they get a throwaway one-line mention, for color and verisimilitude) partially because I want to flesh out people's families, their classmates, their coworkers, etc., and partly because I'm just weird and obsessive like that.

It also hit me, a while ago, that Ayakawa is an odd name. That is to say, almost all the names I've made up for my Naruto fanfiction stories are deliberately built from actual words, but Ayakawa isn't. The ones I didn't make up, I stole from real people or other manga. (Naga is neither stolen nor made up with help from a dictionary -- it's not even Japanese, really -- but it's a snake-themed name and it's pronounceable in Japanese, so whatever.) Ayakawa, however, I just pulled out of thin air.

I think, if 'kawa' is meant to be 'river,' it should probably be written as 'gawa,' since it's in a compound word. I seem to recall seeing that done; it's like the way 'kane' (metal) becomes 'gane' in compounds; please correct me if I'm wrong. (I'm not switching the spelling in the stories, though; it would be too much bother at this point.) I also couldn't find any meaning for 'aya' so today I decided that it was originally 'ayu' but the pronunciation shifted. Therefore, 'ayakawa,' or 'ayugawa,' would mean something like 'freshwater trout river,' which amuses me to no end. :-)

Eiji's family name, 'Amane,' seems to work out to something along the lines of 'the price of linen' -- from 'ama' (linen/flax/hemp) + 'ne' (price/cost) -- which is equally amusing, and probably equally off-base, linguistically speaking. But you know something? I don't care -- it's a good name for a businessman, so I'm happy. I can't remember exactly where I stole the name from, offhand, but I do know I didn't pull that one out of thin air. It's funny that it turned out to be appropriate anyway.

Where was I...

Oh, yes. The original point of this was that I needed to name a minor character who became unexpectedly relevant to my plot outline -- Kafunnokaze's jounin-sensei (and if that's not a plot hint I don't know what is) -- and I wanted family names for two secondary characters associated with Eiji: Takeshi, one of his ship captains, and Rika, the harbormaster. (Harbor-mistress, really, but whatever.) And that is now done. *beams*

Comments

[elfiepike.livejournal.com]

have you ever messed around with jeffrey's japanese english dictionary server (http://linear.mv.com/cgi-bin/j-e/jis/dict)? it's especially fun because you can look up words, steal the kanji, and look up names that use those kanji. :D

[proanon.livejournal.com]

Actually, "Ayakawa" is perfectly valid as a Japanese name. In fact... *smiles wryly* It IS a Japanese name! Do a Google Search on it and see. "Kawa" doesn't always turn into "gawa." I'm not entirely clear on the rules of pronunciation, but I've run into plenty of places where kawa and kane keep their k's.

And on the meaning of 'aya'... you've got twenty different kanji you could use. Have fun. :-P (Here are a few: 'history/chronicle,' 'ceremony/thanks,' 'garden/park,' 'favor/blessing,' 'family crest,' 'color/paint,' 'spotted/small tiger,' 'logic/reason/justice/truth,' 'beautiful/patterned,' 'colorful,' 'embroidery.')

Have you tried using Jim Breen's online dictionary? ...oops, nevermind. I forgot, you have to have basic Japanese reading ability (the syllabic system is sufficient) to really get anything out of it...

[edenfalling]

How would it read, as a phrase, if I used 'favor/blessing' for 'aya'? 'River of blessings'? 'Blessing river'? 'Blessed river'? *is curious*

I also rather like 'beautiful river' and 'ceremony river' -- though that last one... 'ceremonial river'? 'River of ceremonies'? 'River of thanks'? 'Thankful river'?

The trouble with this sort of thing is that some of these words seem to be phrases, when translated into English, and yet I don't know Japanese grammar and so I have no idea which phrases are acceptable translations and which are nonsense. *sigh*

Someday I would like to learn Japanese and be able to read at least the syllabic system... that's katakana, right? Of course, I'd also like to learn Latin, and Ancient Greek, and Mandarin Chinese, and Hungarian, and Spanish, and Russian, and maybe Swahili just for the heck of it, and possibly also Leni Lenape or Ojibway/Anishanabeg because it's good to stretch one's mind by learning languages that use radically different grammar structures from one's own native language. *sigh* My wish-list of languages is far longer than my available time and determination, so I'm most likely not going to learn any of them. Well, except for Spanish. That might actually be useful in my everyday life.

Sorry about the doubled comment; my html goes to hell when I'm tired.

[proanon.livejournal.com]

To be honest, Japanese names are not usually put together to MEAN something. Or if they are, they aren't put together as 'phrases.' A native speaker just looks at the kanji, understands what they mean, and 'understands' the name.

Japanese has two syllabic systems - katakana and hiragana. Hiragana are the more swirly characters (to quote my roommate) and katakana are spikier. If you learn one, learn hiragana - that's the most common. Katakana are generally used for import words, sound effects and occasionally for emphasis.

And I'm with you whole-heartedly on the languages thing. I'd like to learn German, and pick up Spanish again, and Chinese, and Arabic...