If you go to Japan, there’s a chance you might meet someone with an unusual name – such as “Nike,” “Pikachu” or “Pudding.”
While still a minority, these names have grown in popularity over recent decades as parents reject traditional Japanese names for something more unique.
But the practice has also drawn criticism – mainly that it’s confusing for hospitals, schools and authorities who don’t know how to pronounce them.
Now the government is cracking down on these so-called “kirakira” names, which means sparkly or shiny. New rules came into effect on Monday that will limit parents from giving their babies names pronounced in unconventional ways.
The news was met with mixed reactions; some social media users argued that kirakira names are an expression of individualism, that they’re fairly harmless and don’t warrant government regulation.
“They’re not children of the nation, right? They’re children of their parents,” one person wrote on X after the announcement.
Many more, however, welcomed the change – lamenting that children with unusual names might face harassment, or at the very least complications in administrative tasks like registrations or banking.
“Why do certain people put kirakira names on their kids? It just causes those kids to be bullied,” one X user wrote. Another joked sarcastically: “Please stop restricting kirakira names. Seeing a child’s name reveals the intelligence of their parents, which is helpful.”
How ‘kirakira’ names work
Japan uses three writing systems – Kanji, which is based on Chinese characters, and two other phonetic systems. Names are typically written in Kanji, and this is where the trouble comes in.
Because these Chinese characters were mixed with the existing Japanese language, each Kanji character can be pronounced multiple ways – some with ten or more ways. You decipher the “right” pronunciation based on context clues and the other characters in a sentence or phrase.
cnn
