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HomeResourcesJapanese Patent Translation BulletinNo. 7: Personal Names in Japanese-to-English Translation Japanese Patent Translation Bulletin No. 7 (May 18, 2009) Personal Names in Japanese-to-English Translation by William Lise Rendering names in translations between two languages that share a common writing system is usually fairly straightforward. When the writing systems differ as much as they do between Japanese and English, problems arise that are not usually obvious to readers familiar with only one of the languages. Readings of Japanese Personal Names People operating chiefly in English or other European langauges are sometimes confronted with questions of how someone spells his or her name, be it the family name or a given name. The degree of uncertainty, however, is usually a choice between alternatives such as Smith and Smythe, Green and Greene, or Brian and Bryan. In Japanese, the degree of uncertainty and distance between alternative readings of names is much higher, and is caused by a characteristic of the Japanese use of Chinese characters, specifically, that many characters have multiple possible readings, sometimes completely different from each other. Take, for example, the following Japanese given name. The first character is most often read hide in names, but can also be read ei, which is its more common reading when used in non-name Japanese words. The second character is most often read aki in names, but can also be read mei or myo which are the more common readings in non-name Japanese words. The normal choice would be to render this name as Hideaki, and in fact almost all people in Japan have met or heard of numerous males who read their name precisely in this manner. However, the name can be read Eimei but that is not at all apparent to the reader or translators, because of the ambiguity of Japanese name readings. In the following cases, it might be possible to verify the reading of the name can be verified. The name of a currently registered Japanese patent attorney (benrishi). The reading of the name can be ascertained from the database of the Japan Patent Attorneys Association (Japanese only). The name of an inventor who is listed as an inventor on a patent document that has been disclosed in English. The name of an author who is mentioned somewhere on the Internet or in a database (but only if it can be verified that the person in the document being translated is indeed the same person). In some cases, however, the name cannot be verified, and our policy is to surround the name with questions marks (e.g., ?Hiroshi?). Sequence of Names In Japanese, the family name precedes the given name. Most Japanese, however, reverse the order when writing their names in English-language documents. Because few non-Japanese can recognize very many Japanese family or given names, to avoid confusion our policy is to render the name Given FAMILY, with the family name in all capitals (e.g., Hideaki HIRANO and Ichiro SUZUKI).

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