Nikkei Chronicles #3—Nikkei Names: Taro, John, Juan, João?
What’s in a name? This series introduces stories exploring the meanings, origins, and the untold stories behind personal Nikkei names. This can include family names, given names, and even nicknames!
For this project, we asked our Nima-kai to vote for their favorite stories and our editorial committee to pick their favorites.
Here are the selected favorite stories.
Editorial Committee’s selections:
- ENGLISH:
Re-Discovering My Name Between Two Cultures
By Jayme Tsutsuse
- JAPANESE:
What it means to have a Nikkei name in Brazil
By Satomi Takano Kitahara
- SPANISH:
A Discordant Name Match
By Jimmy Seiji Amemiya Siu
- PORTUGUESE:
Who am I speaking with?
By Claudio Sampei
Nima-kai selection:
- 96 stars:
The Chosen Names
By Mary Sunada
Stories from this series
Short and funny story
Nov. 17, 2014 • Nancy Ishikawa Yassuda
My dear mother's name is a little strange, because her mother, my little batchan, didn't know Portuguese. Do you have any idea what that name is? I promise that I will only reveal it at the end, because now I will tell you that my mother and my aunts are respectively TÓ, KÓ, KIKA and NÊ. But today the name in Portuguese prevails because it is more sensible. KÓ and KIKA are called that because it was the affectionate way …
What’s In a Name? For Me, Someone Liked Ike
Nov. 14, 2014 • David Toyoshima
All parents ruminate on what to name their child. They go through baby-naming books. Suggestions from family and friends. Fads of the day. Boy, girl, the process is nearly ceaseless. Sleepless nights. And even after the baby is born, there are still days, perhaps weeks that go by with nary a name but the sex of the child. I have the extra benefit of being Japanese American. Traditionally, many third and fourth generation JAs had a Japanese middle name. It …
Does a Name Have Any Power?
Nov. 12, 2014 • Mina Otsuka
A few years ago, I was working at a company in Tokyo and had a chance to be a conversational partner of some Japanese English learners. If it had been a job at a regular English school (or an eikaiwa—English conversation—school), I would not have gotten the opportunity in the first place, mainly because of my all-too-Japanese look which would make the student feel that she is talking to a girl next door or a distant relative whom she’s meeting …
The Chosen Names
Nov. 10, 2014 • Mary Sunada
Who is Mary Mieko Sunada? It begins with my birth certificate. A baby girl is born Mary Mieko Nakata on January 1, 1948 at 1 a.m. at 1-4 Tanaka-machi Askusa Daito-ku, Tokyo, Japan. My parents are Yoneto Nakata from Sanger, California, U.S.A. and Yaeko Niikura from Gumna-ken, Japan. My father, Yoneto, became the last of the Nakata family. He had no brothers or sisters. His mother got sick after giving birth to him and the family moved back to Japan. …
A Discordant Name Match
Nov. 7, 2014 • Jimmy Seiji Amemiya Siu
My birth certificate says Jimmy Seiji. When they hear my name, many of my friends have asked me, “Is your real name Jimmy or James?” And I tell them that my name is Jimmy; that’s how it appears on my birth certificate. When I asked my parents about the reason for my name, they told me that when I was born they had no time to think of a name (since all they cared about was that their only male …
The importance of first and last name
Nov. 5, 2014 • Rosa Tomeno Takada
In my hometown, Bastos, which is the most Japanese of Brazil's cities, women up to my age group were educated to leave their family surname and adopt their husband's surname when they got married. I also accepted this naturally. I remember parents cried when their daughter got married and celebrated when their son got married. In the past, in the case of an only child, parents insisted on registering their first grandchildren with the family surname and not with the …