Miwa's Name

[KogeJoe]

This is just a guess, but does Miwa's name in kanji mean "Beauty and Harmony?"

I just thought of that right now, and how it could be the reason Miwa's solo album "Beauty and Harmony" was named that way...

[nakoruru]

It happens that you guessed that right! "Mi" is written with the kanji for beauty and "wa" for harmony. I love japanese names, they have quite some nice meanings. Such as "Natsumi" which means summer beauty and other things like that. I find them more interesting than western names anyway.

FYI "yoshi" means joy and "da" means rice field. You'll find MANY common surnames with "da" (rice field) such as "Yamada", "Honda"... but it can be read as "ta" as well as in "Tanaka" also meaning rice field.

Priscila.

[James]

What about Masa's name?

- James

[nakoruru]

Well, "naka" means inside and "mura" means town/village. Now "masa" means according to my dictionary correct/righteous. "To" means person.

One thing I think is worth mentioning is that surnames are pronunced exactly like the words they mean but names have rather different readings, as "to" from Masa's name is read "hito/nin" usually.

Priscila.

[tachikaze]

'yoshi' generally means 'lucky/auspicious', so Yoshida means lucky field.

[nakoruru]

Thanks for the note, Tachikaze. I'm still learning japanese so any new info is absolutely welcome.

[tachikaze]

this is the absolutely coolest resource:

http://www.popjisyo.com/WebHint/Portal_e.aspx

this should make learning vocabularly about 100000000 times easier.

[nakoruru]

Tachikaze, thanks a whole bunch for the link. My gosh! It's sooooo handy I can't believe it! Very good, helps a lot to learn vocabulary indeed.

Priscila.