Japanese Nicknames and Middle Names
 

I have a few of questions I am curious about.

1.) Do people in Japan have middle names?

2.) How are nicknames created?

3.) What does "kichi" mean added onto a name? Like if someone is named "Teru" and he is called "Terukichi"?

Thank you! :rheart:

1) Nope. Ignore those who tell you otherwise.

2) In many ways.

A. Take one part of a person's either first or last name.
B. Add "chan" or "kun" to A.
C. Add a random sound to A, such as "pii", "chin", "ppe", "maru", etc.
D. Kids like to create nicknames from others' physical characteristics (fat, skinny, tall, curly hair, red hair, etc). Teachers try to stop this in school but they do it anyway.

There are many other ways. One of my classmates back in high school was nicknamed "Denver" just because she liked John Denver. Another one (a boy) was nicknamed "Umeji" completely out of the blue.

3) This is hard to explain because, as a non-native speaker, you wouldn't know how "kichi" sounded to the Japanese ear. The original "kichi" is the kanji 吉, meaning "good" or "good luck" and it was part of many masculine names a long time ago.

Now, very few boys are named with that character. But people still like the sound very much, so they sometimes create nicknames by adding "kichi" to a part of a first name. I say "a part of it" because it ends up too long a name if you add "kichi" to someon'e full first name which usually has 3-4 syllables already.

1) no
2) various ways, it's hard to state a single, short rule because there are multiple ways—can you tell me how nicknames in English are made? John->Jimmy? William->Billy? For example, I had a good friend in Japan named ふみや and one of the first days I met him we were making some gangster jokes or something and I called him ふみやろう in front of our entire tennis team and the nickname stuck. Probably was just the humor of a foreigner calling him やろう, though...
3) 吉: Edit Nagoyankee explains it better than I.

Oh God, that is so true! Haha. I have two friends in Japan named Ayana and Kanako. On Mixi, their names are アヤナピョン and かなピョン. I always thought it'd be better for me since my name is so close to カエル and ピョン reminds me of ピョコピョコ.

1)There is not the middle name
2)From a name and a family name, an appearance or a habit
quite suitable:D
3)"~~~kichi" is the one on the side of an old name in the back.
To soften the nuance, it puts it.
"kichi" "suke" "zaemon"etc....

It is difficult to explain an actual usage.......

Thanks to all of you very much! You were very helpful! :D

I have a question related to this...

Is there any Japanese equivalent to a person's initials?

No. When Japanese people want to initialise names, they use Romaji, e.g. Tanaka Akiko = T. A.

Some Japanese names only have one kanji (my husband's given name does), so there's no reason or way to shorten them any more.

I have a similar question, so I guess I ought to post it here
Where would the nickname 'Shuu' (愁) come from?

The real name is "愁~"? 愁一,愁人
愁=Sorrow?
There are very few people to employ for a name because it is the kanji that is not good.

愁=Sorrow , An evil , bad state
stupid parent may use it for a name:(

愁一"Shuich" (game,manga)
愁人"akito" ,愁斗"shuto",愁 "shu"(Cruel name WebSite)
片山愁 (comic artist)

If it is a real name, the child is poor......
I think that there are few people using even HN and the nom de plume

P.S
I found you in a thread of the J-Rock
The person of "VisualBand" tends to like a short name and a negative name.

言ってる事おかしくないかなぁ・・・　ただの憶測なの にまるで事実みたいに言ってるよね。
is って断定だよ。なのに疑問符付けてる。

たかがバンドマンのあだ名なのに、親の言語感覚がどう のこうの言うのって完全な的外れ。本名から来てるって 確認とれてるの？

カキコのためのカキコはＪＦではしないでね。あと Location の "Jap" ってどういうつもりで書いたの？なにか日本に文句ある の？

すまんね英語は苦手で勉強しなおし中
バンドマン云々は最初は知らなかったのよ
スレッド色々見回った後後から付け足した全く別の話だ けど文章の流れ的におかしいのかな？ちょっと解らない 。（初期投稿と編集時間で察してもらえれば幸い）
JFは何？返信？すまんわからん
JAPはつまらない事気にする人へのあてつけのようなもの
他意がなけりゃ気にするような事でもないと思ってるか らね

It's not far as I know his real name.

How do you know this about his dad?

That sounds very stereotypical of boys everywhere to report their parents like that. I'd say the same.