necoandjeff wrote:
> "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?
> 



Are you Gowen's new attack dog? Nice, he needs friends,
especially as now the USMC have declined to issue him with any.

If you are so interested in explaining this then why didn't you
reply to initial post?

Gowen's comment is not "hyberbole" and my response is emphatic
because his is clearly false in the majority of cases. With
regard to womens names there are very few kanji that are used
solely for their sounds, eg A, KA, KI, NA, YU (I can't write
kanji on this machine). Why has KO been largely dropped from
girls names? Men are given kanji like strong, honest, pure for
good reason.

Your friend's name probably has a meaning you are not aware of.
Did she tell you it has no meaning or did she tell you? Ask her
and get back to me, and ask her parents why they didn't write it
in kana.