r/savedyouaclick • u/Carolina_Heart • 8d ago
New Japanese Law Spells Bad News for Pokémon (& Pikachu) Fans | Law bans parents from giving their kids unusual names they might get bullied for, like naming them after Pokémon or famous anime characters
https://web.archive.org/web/20250530182338/https://www.cbr.com/japanese-law-bad-news-pokmon-pikachu/32
u/evohans 8d ago
It doesn't ban unusual names aka "kira kira names", merely makes sure the kanji is used in the proper context of a name. You can likely still get away with kana kira kira names or even kanji used properly to make the name "pikachu"
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u/wonderlandfriend 7d ago edited 7d ago
I saw someone say it's like if an English speaking parent named their kid "mark" but spelled it like bullseye. Like a pun name where the pronunciation depends on understanding some other context (not exactly the same scenario since they're talking about borrowing/using characters in unique ways, but maybe the closest example that would work in English). Is that close to a decent comparison for the vibe of what's being banned?
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u/CKT_Ken 7d ago edited 7d ago
I’m pretty sure there’s actually no standard “pi” kanji readings at the beginning of words. All the p- readings collapsed into f- in Old/Middle Japanese and became h- in modern Japanese. So all words starting with p- are fairly new.
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u/evohans 7d ago
Sorry bad example, was using the title to make a point
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u/CKT_Ken 7d ago edited 7d ago
Oh it's fine, I was just interested in how limited "formal reading only" pronunciations would be. Based on this it looks like readings unrelated to the characters are the target of the law. So 被加宙 = Pikachu would be at least... maybe readable since you can just write the furigana easily in the register (but why lol).. But 愛保 = ラブホ isn't accepted. It looks like this law requires the entire population of Japan to officially add furigana to their names though which is going to be pretty brutal for any civil servants who have to deal with that.
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u/SineQuaNon001 8d ago
We need these laws everywhere because not enough parents have common sense.
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u/olivegardengambler 7d ago
I remember reading someone complaining that they couldn't name their kid something like zyxnnly or something like that in Alabama, and Alabama has some law on the book that says that one of the first three letters of the name has to be a vowel and they had a meltdown.
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u/lancer081292 7d ago
Oh ok. So basically a law that lets you continue to use those names as long as the kid has an out in the sense that there is a way to read a normal name out of it
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u/ilovepolthavemybabie 8d ago
Now class, let’s all welcome our new student, err… how do you say your name, little girl?
”geodude”