The change is designed to halt the use of kirakira (shiny or glittery) names that have proliferated among parents hoping to add a creative flourish

Parents in Japan will no longer have free rein over the names they give their children, after the introduction this week of new rules on the pronunciation of kanji characters.

The change is designed to halt the use of kirakira (shiny or glittery) names that have proliferated among parents hoping to add a creative flourish to their children’s names – creating administrative headaches for local authorities and, in some cases, inviting derision from classmates.

While the revisions to the family registry act do not ban kanji – Chinese-based characters in written Japanese – parents are required to inform local authorities of their phonetic reading, in an attempt to banish unusual or controversial pronunciations.

  • Stern@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    All three babies born in Japan this year will breath a sigh of relief I’m sure.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      28 days ago

      This year: three babies

      Next year: 3 million kevinist kids shackled with absolutely dumb vanity names until they are permitted to change them.

      • futatorius@lemm.ee
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        28 days ago

        Someone in California had a vanity plate that read “NULL.” Turns out that’s where the state computer assigned traffic tickets where the license plate was unreadable, so he got a shedload, and it took him a lot of work to get that mess cleared up.

        Null is also a German surname, so people who aren’t taking the piss get caught in problems due to stupid input validation and bad testing.

  • magnetosphere@fedia.io
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    28 days ago

    Names that seem excessively “creative” can seem stupid to me, but government regulation is the worst way possible to try and deal with it. As usual, tolerance is the answer.

  • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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    28 days ago

    Others have made headlines for their supposed impudence – Ōjisama (Prince) and Akuma (Devil).

    Those poor Street Fighter fans can’t get a break

  • njm1314@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    That really seems like a tool a government could use to abuse minority populations. Not to mention stagnate it’s culture.

  • Lembot_0002@lemm.ee
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    28 days ago
    1. Name_1_male
    2. Name_1_female

    1. Name_16_male
    2. Name_16_female

    Should be enough!

    • a4ng3l@lemmy.world
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      28 days ago

      Following the logic of one of my beloved enterprise data architect everything should use UUIDs as way of refer to an entity… so more like

      • a6a01005-b698-4344-a88b-06911ca71965
      • 5f763196-46a6-4f1d-b7b8-55d948eb6080

      Wouldn’t be practical to pronounce but otherwise no more problem of gimmicky names :)

  • DicJacobus@lemmy.world
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    27 days ago

    How many children unfortunate enough to have Elon Musk as their sperm donor have outlandish names/