Upon reviewing my stats on Site Meter, it appears that many people had visited my blog when search the following keywords:
- What is the first names of Arashi members?
- Arashi members first names
- What is Ohno Satoshi’s first name?
This is quite intriguing. Though, I am not surprised that this topic provides confusion to many people since the Western name structure differs. Mainly due to the interchangeable order of Asian names.
In Eastern culture, a name usually consist of one’s surname/family name followed by a given name. Middle names are not generally used. However, many tend to Westernized their names by the “surname–given-name” order to “given-name–surname” to simplify the confusion. Unfortunately, this does not provide clarity. Though, many talents such as the Arashi members use the “surname-given-name” order, publications and other media sources may use otherwise, depending on the statistics on trends, popularity, etc.
Here are some “surname–given-name” examples….
Japanese names
Let’s start with Matsumoto Jun (松本潤). Matsumoto (松本) is his surname while Jun (潤) is his given name.
Here are additional examples with the rest of the Arashi members!
| Surname |
First/Given Name |
| Ohno (大野) |
Satoshi(智) |
| Sakurai (櫻井) |
Sho (翔) |
| Aiba (相葉) |
Masaki (雅紀) |
| Ninomiya (二宮) |
Kazunari (和也) |
Japanese names are usually written in kanji, which are characters of Chinese origin with Japanese pronunciation. Additional forms of the Japanese writing system include hiragana or katakana. Thus, a name could be written in several forms:
| Romaji |
Kanji |
Hiragana |
| Matsumoto Jun |
松本潤 |
まつもと じゅん |
| Ohno Satoshi |
大野智 |
おおの さとし |
| Ninomiya Kazunari |
二宮和也 |
にのみや かずなり |
| Sakurai Sho |
櫻井翔 |
さくらい しょう |
| Aiba Masaki |
相葉雅紀 |
あいば まさき |
Chinese names
Damian Lau Chung-Yan (劉松仁) will be the example. Lau (劉) is his surname while Chung-Yan (松仁) is his given. In most cases, the English name is placed prior to the full Chinese name, however, it could be less significant in some countries, and placed afterwards.
The Chinese writing system also consist of two forms – traditional and simplified. Traditional Chinese is mostly used in the Republic of China (Taiwan), Hong Kong and Macau, as well as in overseas Chinese communities. Simplified Chinese was adopted People’s Republic of China in the 20th century.
| Traditional Chinese |
Simplified Chinese |
| 劉松仁 |
刘松仁 |
Hope you enjoy this very mini lesson as much as I did writing it. I’m thinking about writing some more every now and then, just for the fun of it. Free free to comment, I would love to hear your thoughts, both good and bad.
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