Baby X: The Name Game, Part III – “Make a Decision Already!”
Thanks everyone for the feedback on the names. Maria corrected me on the pronunciation of Masai. It’s Masa-ee. Also, in the comments, Paul pointed out the slave owner connotation of “Masa” – yikes! Please keep the comments coming – your input could save him from getting beat up on the playground.
When we were picking Kai’s name, we thought of “Kai” early on, and liked it immediately. We’re now realizing that Kai is a rarity among Japanese boys’ names: it’s easy to pronounce, and it sounds masculine to an American ear. About two-thirds of all the Japanese boys’ names are too difficult for a native Rhode Islander’s like me to say without sounding like an idiot. Of the rest, many sound feminine, as they often end in “a”, and the Japanese addiction to long vowels gives most names a “soft” sound.
We’re now finding ourselves re-considering a couple names that were on our initial list but had slipped our minds: Makoto, Makio, and Nikko (“knee-ko”). We need to learn more about the meaning of Nikko, as “ko” is traditionally a feminine name ending (e.g. the female version of Masa is Masako), but Nikko turns up on lists of boys’ names.
After discovering Tei the other day, I’ve learned you can put a variety of different consonants in front of “ei”, and it’s a name. So, I’m also looking at Jei (“Jay”) and Rei (“Ray”), but I haven’t run them by Maria yet.
So much for having narrowed it down to three options. Am I driving you crazy yet?
June 24th, 2005 at 5:57 pm
Give it up. His name is Jake already. Yo!
Nikko ain’t so bad. There’s Nicko McBrain and that cute little kittty cat from the X11 application where the cat runs around chasing the mouse pointer…
Maybe you should name him after a kind of japanese food. Natto perhaps? Mushi? Tempura? Unagi!!!!!
June 24th, 2005 at 11:18 pm
Hi Michael-
Were these all discounted?
Daigen
tye-dye)
Jin or Jinta
Ren
Jori (?)
Tai (to go along with Kai)
Kidai or Tidai (Santa Cruz
Jet (this probably isn’t Japanese but I like the name – hey — Jet Lee!)
June 29th, 2005 at 8:19 am
I know that a lot of names are homonyms, as you said, depending on how they’re written. I know this guy that goes by Masa as short for Masayoshi, “Good General” is what it means in his case. People really seem to enjoy saying his name, that’s for sure.
Don’t forget, sticking with “X” would rule, too.
March 3rd, 2009 at 8:32 pm
We are thinking of Nikko, too. Let me know what you find out about the meaning…from what I can tell, in Japanese it means daylight or sunlight. In Greek it means victory of the people (part of origin from Nike the goddess of victory). I did see that there is a city in Japan called Nikko…some history of Samurai there.
March 3rd, 2009 at 8:33 pm
By the way, we are out in Northern California and my husband is Japanese…but didn’t want something that was too Japanese or hard to pronounce.