this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
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The change is designed to halt the use of kirakira (shiny or glittery) names that have proliferated among parents hoping to add a creative flourish

Parents in Japan will no longer have free rein over the names they give their children, after the introduction this week of new rules on the pronunciation of kanji characters.

The change is designed to halt the use of kirakira (shiny or glittery) names that have proliferated among parents hoping to add a creative flourish to their children’s names – creating administrative headaches for local authorities and, in some cases, inviting derision from classmates.

While the revisions to the family registry act do not ban kanji – Chinese-based characters in written Japanese – parents are required to inform local authorities of their phonetic reading, in an attempt to banish unusual or controversial pronunciations.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 17 hours ago

Pikachu, Naiki (Nike), Daiya (Diamond), Pū (as in Winnie-the-Pooh) and Kitty

Is that the worst they can come up with? They could learn a lot from Americans.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 18 hours ago

How many children unfortunate enough to have Elon Musk as their sperm donor have outlandish names/

[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 day ago (1 children)

All three babies born in Japan this year will breath a sigh of relief I'm sure.

[–] corsicanguppy 5 points 1 day ago

This year: three babies

Next year: 3 million kevinist kids shackled with absolutely dumb vanity names until they are permitted to change them.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That really seems like a tool a government could use to abuse minority populations. Not to mention stagnate it's culture.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Names that seem excessively “creative” can seem stupid to me, but government regulation is the worst way possible to try and deal with it. As usual, tolerance is the answer.

[–] corsicanguppy 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

What do you mean?

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 day ago (1 children)

While the revisions to the family registry act do not ban kanji – Chinese-based characters in written Japanese – parents are required to inform local authorities of their phonetic reading

Well this is fucking crazy to me. Almost every single form you ever have to write your name on in Japan also has a section that you have to write the phonetic reading of it as well. The fact that it doesn't exist on the family register is absolutely bonkers. I know Japan hates updating things, but even back in the day there were multiple readings for the same kanji characters, and the government being ok with ambiguity on official documents is blowing my mind.

Even before the shiny names the article is talking about the names could be wildly different. We're not talking about not knowing if Ashleigh is pronounced Ash-lee or Ash-lay, it's like 里香 being commonly read as either Rika or Satoko.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago (3 children)

As an aside, Ashleigh is an abomination regardless of how it's spelled, derived from a toponymic surname that later became a boy's given name. Parents who give their daughters such names should be put in the stocks and made to eat gruel made from spelt cooked in day-old hotdog water.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

What if my daughter is actually a field with ash trees though?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Bro how bad did Ashleigh hurt you?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago
[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Little Bobby Tables nods approvingly.

(an old XKCD joke)

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

Someone in California had a vanity plate that read "NULL." Turns out that's where the state computer assigned traffic tickets where the license plate was unreadable, so he got a shedload, and it took him a lot of work to get that mess cleared up.

Null is also a German surname, so people who aren't taking the piss get caught in problems due to stupid input validation and bad testing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

There really is an xkcd for everything.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Others have made headlines for their supposed impudence – Ōjisama (Prince) and Akuma (Devil).

Those poor Street Fighter fans can't get a break

[–] dubyakay 2 points 1 day ago

The character's Japanese name is Gouki though. Not Akuma.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)
  1. Name_1_male
  2. Name_1_female

...

  1. Name_16_male
  2. Name_16_female

Should be enough!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Following the logic of one of my beloved enterprise data architect everything should use UUIDs as way of refer to an entity… so more like

  • a6a01005-b698-4344-a88b-06911ca71965
  • 5f763196-46a6-4f1d-b7b8-55d948eb6080

Wouldn’t be practical to pronounce but otherwise no more problem of gimmicky names :)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

I prefer my unique IDs to be derived from the whole UTF-16 table.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago

Not allowed.

Name_1_Body-type_A Name_2_Body-type_B