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
Who Am I Speaking With?
Nov. 3, 2014 • Claudio Sampei
Rrrring! Rrrrring! “Hello?” “Who am I speaking with?” “........” I needed some time to answer who it was. I was trying to recognize the voice at the other end of the line before saying my name. My relatives and my family and nihongogakko friends call me Mamoru, but everybody else knows me as Claudio. Mamoru isn’t found in official documents, but some people, even my relatives, either don’t know or don’t remember that I’m also Claudio. When I learned that …
That’s Not My Name
Oct. 30, 2014 • Noemi Onelli
I grew up resenting my name. It was too ethnic, too different, too confusing. My mother is a third-generation Japanese American. My maternal grandparents were children of Japanese-speaking farmers who had emigrated to the United States before WWII and subsequently were interned (at the same camp, no less). My mother and her siblings do not speak Japanese nor do they have Japanese names because, according to my late grandfather, they were Americans. And this is not Japan. My late father …
My Experience as a Dekasegi
Oct. 27, 2014 • Santos Ikeda Yoshikawa
My parents are Japanese (my father is from Kagoshima; my mother from Ehime), which firmly rooted my sentiments towards Japan until I was able to travel there myself. I used to dream of finding my father’s family, but that dream was only a fantasy with the high cost of travel, lodging, learning the language, and limited income as a public employee. As a professional and government official in Peru, I had a low salary just like all public employees. My …
Don’t Call Me Victoria, Vicki, Vikki, or Binky…
Oct. 24, 2014 • Vicky K. Murakami-Tsuda
When my mother was pregnant with me…in the time before ultrasounds…Dr. Shigekawa (many Los Angeles area Japanese Americans of several generations were delivered by her) told her that I would be a boy. So, my parents had decided to name me Richard Murakami. When I came out…surprise! It’s a girl! I’ve never asked why, but my mother decided to name me after a soap opera character—Victoria from One Life to Live. However, they didn’t name me “Victoria”—my legal name is …
Names and their implications
Oct. 22, 2014 • Rosa Tomeno Takada
The surname DOI in Portuguese means itai, itamu , that is, “it hurts”, “to hurt”. I had a friend whose name was KUMEO. In fact, there are many Japanese names and surnames that begin with KU, for example, KUBOTA, KUJIKEN, which are a source of ridicule, as it is known that there is a bad word that is precisely the syllable KU. Brazilians even made a huge list of names and surnames that became jokes if they Brazilianized the pronunciation. …
My name is Tomeno
Oct. 20, 2014 • Rosa Tomeno Takada
Tomeno is my Japanese name. Unusual name. I found another like it only once in my life, a long time ago, on a newspaper page that reported the death of an elderly woman. This name of mine was a laughing stock when I was a teenager, because it sounds like words in Portuguese that don't match a person's name. And my name was also mistaken as a surname, so some of my sisters also called Tomeno! I am the seventh …