Well! Let me bring you back to earth, Kyle. Someone's gotta do it!
Why would this be "dishonorable"? That sounds like something out of some medieval movie. Btw, you do know how often the Japanese "dishonor" the English language they are supposedly taught in schools right? It makes no difference whether it's English put on 50% of merchandise in Japan, or some few people putting Japanese on their body elsewhere. Whenever we see those weird English phrases or words from the Japanese, we just laugh and think the Japanese are weird, vice-versa is true also.
There's no more meaning other than it's how you'd pronounce his name with the extremely limited sounds of Japanese.
And the concept? There's nothing fancy here. There's the best pronunciation and then there's the Japanese symbols (HA!) to do it. That's all there is to that concept.
What you get out of these tattoos are curiosity and questions. Most tattoos are not paid any attention to. With the exception of Japan, few people around the world know any Japanese. Really, this tattoo could be in anything as long as most people do not initially know what it means. As of right now, Japan happens to be pretty popular in modern culture, so it's no surprise that people often look to Japanese symbols (HA!) first. It may be strange, but that's the point!
I'll have to agree with one thing for sure... Make sure you are getting what you mean to get. Research it yourself and don't rely on some tattoo artist to make it up for you. That site is hilarious though!
"his initials, requesting the tattooist to "write them in Chinese symbols / characters / ideographs / hieroglyphs / pictographs / whatever.""
ROFL! Initials? Seriously?
In any case, it's true, unknown languages, especially the complex and pictographic Chinese writing, are "mystical" or whatever to those who don't understand them. But face it, if you've seen enough of them and understand so many of them like you want the tattooed to do, that "air of mystique" disappears! They become just words.
Knowing only the meaning, which no one else around you would know, is the significance. However, you may get weird(er) stares while in Japan or China, but whatever, you're just some crazy foreigner anyways.
Now I'm going back to that hilarious site to read more tattoos gone wrong. Then I'll head on over to the equally hilarious Engrish.com.