About Japan, for beginners - Japanese name(2)

The first characters which the Japanese used were Chinese letters.
We call them kanji. Kanji means Han dynasty's letters.
Later two letters were formed on ground of kanji.
Hiragana and katakana. They are called kana.
Kana means false letters, or temporary letters. The Japanese thought that only Chinese letters were true letters.
Chinese letters are logograms. For example, 北 has meaning of north and pronounciation of bei.
It is Beijing's Bei.
We used kita as meaning of north in original Japanese. So when we write the letter of 北, we prounounce it kita. But 北 has other pronounciations in Japanese, like hô, hok, and hoku.
Hokkaidô's Hok is written by the letter.
Pronounciations of kanji, not in original Japanese, were from ancient China. They are different from modern Chinese.
We call the kanji's pronounciations from ancient China on-yomi.
We call the kanji's pronounciations based on original Japanese kun-yomi.
One kanji letter has more than two different pronounciations.
It makes impossible to know the correct pronouciations of person's names on history in written text.
For example, An Empress named Teishi was on the 10th century.
We know only her name written in kanji, 定子.
But we don't know the pronounciation of her name.
There are many possibilities. Maybe it would be Sadako. But it is not proved exactly. So we call her by on-yomi.
ITÔ Hirofumi was the first PM of Japan in late 19th century.
His name was written, 伊藤博文, in kanji.
He called often Itô Hakubun. Hakubun was pronounciation in on-yomi of his personal name Hirofumi.
Hirofumi was kun-yomi, and Hakubun was on-yomi.
The last shôgun's name was TOKUGAWA Yoshinobu, and he also often called in on-yomi Keiki, not Yoshinobu.
The pronounciations of Keiki and Yoshinobu are different, but have the same letter in kanji.
In one personal name, there are some cases mixed by on-yomi and kun-yomi.
For example, my personal name is Kazuma, written 和馬 in kanji.
和(kazu)+馬(ma), it means Japanese horse.
Kazu is kun-yomi of the letter.
Ma is on-yomi of the letter.

AboutJapan, for beginners - Japanese name(1)

In Japanese text, surname is in front.
For example, Asô Tarô's surname is Asô, and Tarô is his personal name.
But when we show our names to foreigners, particulary to westerners, we often reverse the positions of surname and personal name.
Asô Tarô is also written, Tarô Asô.
Doing so was originally our good will to westerners. Westterner's personal name is in front of names.
We made consideration to their custom.
But now it makes us confused. There are two Japanese, one writes its surname in front, and another writes its personal name in front, in English text.
As a result, foreigners can't know what is his surname or personal name.
I write surname in front about Japanese name on this blog.
And I will write surname in capital letter to show clearly that it is surname.

There were two types of surname in Japan.
Clan name and family name.
Usually, only family name is used now. Most of young men don't know what are their clan names.
My family name is Itô. And my clan name is Fujiwara.
My personal name is Kazuma.
So I am called usually Itô Kazuma.
When clan name is used, I am called Fujiwara no Kazuma.
When we use clan name, in front of personal name, "no" is put.
"no" means "of". A no B = B of A.
So, Fujiwara no Kazuma means that, Kazuma who belongs to Fujiwara clan.
Conversely, when there is "no" in names, the front name of "no" isn't family name, but clan name.
Like Mononobe no Moriya, or Fujiwara no Kamatari.
TOKUGAWA Ieyasu, the first shôgun of Edo bakufu, belonged to Minamoto clan.
So he was also called, Minamoto no Ieyasu.