Not only the complexity of the kanji, but it was 'not done' to use it for some considerable time (according to my painting and calligraphy teacher) because at some point it was a character associated with pornography and the sex trade. It's coming back into use a little now, but most people still use hiragana to avoid the connotations.

I'm being a tad lazy but might I suggest you try getting the name done in chinese instead of Japanese? There are actually ways of writing your name in chinese that are acceptable based on the sound. For example, my name is Reed Johnson and the name I use for my chinese class is 張瑞徳 (Zhang1 Rui4 de2). I also happen to know that they have set ways of pronouncing names associated with the bible, such as David (Dawei) and since you seem to know of the biblical implications of the name Jacob.

I'm going to follow this up with the statement that I don't really endorse people getting Kanji/Hanzi tattoos if they don't even speak the language. I'm not sure why people seem to think that these tattoos make someone seem 'mysterious', I'm also glad that's not the OP's reason for getting this tattoo. I guess I'm just urging the OP the seriously reconsider getting this tattoo in Japanese or Chinese.

Yeah, people don't realize that though kanji tattoos may have been cool in the US once, they are extremely passe at this point, and you will look like someone wearing bell bottoms in 2008. Waaaay out of touch.

In other words, those who still want kanji tattoos are either 13, waaay out of touch with fashion, or are from unfashionable places. Do you really want a permanent record of that on your skin?

Thank you so very much! Both for the Rose and correcting the name! I've tried finding Rose but it comes up with the english version that sounds Japanese. like say Light from Death Note, in the movie they all him Ratio because it's hard for some to say Light. Again thank you!!

Really? I didn't know that, thank you for correcting me, I will try to remember that when searching, I'm no expert and your help is really nice, thank you. I like learning new things. :)


I know flower names were (or are still?) used in that context, but Rose really is my first name. ^^ I just wanted to know... not getting a tattoo or anything and because it so closely relates I probably would never use it to be adressed, I would more then likely just use my last or middle name.

Avoid the problem and go with はなこ. はな means "flower." こ is a common female suffix (that also means "child").

I beg to disagree on the reason that we don't often write "rose" in kanji. The biggest reason is that we have a long tradition of writing in kana the names of vegetables, fruit, fish, flowers, etc. It has very little to do with how complicated the kanji are.

Lily is 百合. Any 2nd-grader would know the two simple kanji but many of us, including very educated adults, would still prefer to write it in kana. Writing words like "rose" in kanji as 薔薇 will more often make you look "affected" rather than "eductaed".

i second that. lol
although, i don't know if anyone knows it or if japanese would call this other word as the meaning of "rose" flower also... but (玫瑰) .

to ppl who thinks that writing 薔薇 is more difficult, you can also tried other options like 玫瑰, which also means "rose", which may seem easier to write in kanji.

it's not all flower names, just specifically 'bara' that's got this association. If your name is 'Rose' then you won't be using 'bara' in any form anyway but katakana： ローズ. I'm not even sure that in Japan 'bara' is used as a personal name at all. If it is, it's definitely uncommon.