"Brett Robson" <info@secret-web.com> wrote in message
news:cgguh0$8ii$1@nnrp.gol.com...
>
>
> necoandjeff wrote:
> > But Kevin is right in the sense that, most often, the name
> > (i.e. the phonetic name) is chosen first, and then kanji are chosen from
> > among several standard ways of writing the phonetic name.
>
> Which is nothing like what Kevin said, "They don't mean shit" I
> seem to recall. Stroke count, aesthetics, meanings, inherited
> kanji all are often important, which means that the kanji ARE
> important.

Well, sure they're *important.* But we were talking about whether a person's
name "means" something weren't we? And Kevin's hyperbole was matched by your
emphatic "bullshit" response wasn't it? Hyperbole aside, names might mean
something but they don't necessarily. That's the bottom line. Most people
don't get this. They cling to some romantic notion that Japanese names
actually "mean" something. I knew a Japanese woman named 西五月（さつき）.
Do you suppose her name really means "May West" or that her first name
*means* "May," or do you think that her parents just happened to like the
way Satsuki sounds and so named her that?

Jeff