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Help[Facts] Re: Is Yumeko a somewhat normal name in Japan?
in reply to a message by ClaudiaS
Thanks for your reply! Yes, that's very interesting, thanks for sharing! Sakurako is really pretty! True, they're definitely a lot less common now.
Momoko and Nanako were still really popular in the 90s and Nanako made the top 10 in 1999, so I suppose it must still have been in the top 100 until at least the 2010s and there must be quite a few younger ones around. Unfortunately, I can't access the top 100 lists from before 2023 anymore.
An i after an e in Japanese usually makes the sound longer. Same with u after o. It's not two syllables, it's one long sound. Youko and Keiko have two syllables, the first syllable is just longer. I think it used to be different many many years ago, but has changed. It was a reform almost 100 years ago, if I remember correctly.
Momoko and Nanako were still really popular in the 90s and Nanako made the top 10 in 1999, so I suppose it must still have been in the top 100 until at least the 2010s and there must be quite a few younger ones around. Unfortunately, I can't access the top 100 lists from before 2023 anymore.
An i after an e in Japanese usually makes the sound longer. Same with u after o. It's not two syllables, it's one long sound. Youko and Keiko have two syllables, the first syllable is just longer. I think it used to be different many many years ago, but has changed. It was a reform almost 100 years ago, if I remember correctly.
This message was edited 6/17/2024, 3:37 PM
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No, long vowels count as two syllables--technically two "mora," which is a linguistic unit of time. A Japanese long vowel takes just twice as long to articulate as a short vowel, and it is perceived by Japanese speakers as two speech units.
The writing system also makes this very clear. Yoko with two morae would be written with two kana よこ; Yoko with long O (Youko) is written with three, ようこ. These aren't like what we call short vowels and long vowels in English (e.g. hat/hate). The quality of the vowel sound doesn't change in Japanese, it's just held longer.
Also, what looks like a single syllable ending with "n" is also two morae. For example, a word such as ringo (apple) is ri-n-go, りんご, three morae.
I can't comment on the usage of names over time, especially when it gets down to a "top 100" rather than just a top 10, as I don't have access to that information. It's also frustrating that lists of popular names often separate them out by kanji spelling, rather than grouping them by pronunciation. There are a zillion different ways to write most names in kanji.
The writing system also makes this very clear. Yoko with two morae would be written with two kana よこ; Yoko with long O (Youko) is written with three, ようこ. These aren't like what we call short vowels and long vowels in English (e.g. hat/hate). The quality of the vowel sound doesn't change in Japanese, it's just held longer.
Also, what looks like a single syllable ending with "n" is also two morae. For example, a word such as ringo (apple) is ri-n-go, りんご, three morae.
I can't comment on the usage of names over time, especially when it gets down to a "top 100" rather than just a top 10, as I don't have access to that information. It's also frustrating that lists of popular names often separate them out by kanji spelling, rather than grouping them by pronunciation. There are a zillion different ways to write most names in kanji.
This message was edited 6/17/2024, 8:29 PM
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