New Post
Search
Help
ArchivesRe: name update
in reply to a message by Minikui
That was an interesting entry, but you do have to take what you read on Wikipedia with a grain of salt. If a Japanese author wanted to give a character a recognizably Western/non-Japanese name, almost anything would have been better than Naomi--which, as even Wikipedia notes, had long been used in Japan as a male name. So maybe the name choice was more about gender-switching than being Westernized.
Also, if Naomi started the fashion for girls' names ending with "mi," it's a little strange that the first "-mi" name to appear in the top 10 was Akemi (1957), followed by Yumi and Mayumi, and finally Naomi (1965; 41 years after publication of the novel). One would have expected Naomi to be the frontrunner.
At any rate, the several Japanese Naomis I have known had no idea that their name was a biblical one which is used in the West until I mentioned it to them. They found that astonishing. So if it was originally intended to convey a "Western" image, no hint of that remains today.
P.S. To your list you can add An, Anna, Juri, Sara and a lot of others I don't have time to think of right now. =)
Also, if Naomi started the fashion for girls' names ending with "mi," it's a little strange that the first "-mi" name to appear in the top 10 was Akemi (1957), followed by Yumi and Mayumi, and finally Naomi (1965; 41 years after publication of the novel). One would have expected Naomi to be the frontrunner.
At any rate, the several Japanese Naomis I have known had no idea that their name was a biblical one which is used in the West until I mentioned it to them. They found that astonishing. So if it was originally intended to convey a "Western" image, no hint of that remains today.
P.S. To your list you can add An, Anna, Juri, Sara and a lot of others I don't have time to think of right now. =)
This message was edited 5/20/2007, 8:47 AM
1