Names

It's been a while since I've posted anything. Partly because I don't think many people know about my blog and partly because I kind of forgot I had a Blogger account. Ooopss...

I have a predicament though, and so I figured this was a good place to mull it over.

I'm considering changing the Japanese kanji of my name.At the moment, the symbols I'm using for Rachel are 莉知絵琉 which read as れい(rei) + ち(chi) + え(e) + る(ru). My problem, however, is that both 莉 and 琉 are very rarely used, and to make matters more complicated, I'm using their least known readings. Usually 莉 is read as り("ri") not れい("rei") and usually 琉 is read as りゅう("ryuu") not る("ru").
Western names in Japanese can be tricky. Some are downright impossible.
For instance, the closest you could hope to get to the name "Kathy" would be カシー(kashii) and Sylvia would be translated as something like シルビア(shirubia). And those are just with the Japanese alphabet
Finding a Western name in Kanji is very challenging. I'm lucky that Rachel is so easily written.

Anyway, I've narrowed the options I have down to a few (okay, really several)combinations.


For the first character, れい(rei) can be either:

莉　which means Jasmine and is the character I am using now for my name. However, it’s rare.

黎 which means Dark or Black. This one looks okay, but it doesn’t appeal to me as much as the other two choises.

玲 which means Sound of Jewels (weirdly random and specific meaning right? I mean, sound of jewels banging together or what?) This one is my first choice, but one of the readings is れ(re) and one isれい(rei) so I don’t want people misreading my name too much.


For the second character, which is ち(chi) I have narrowed it down to two choices the they both have the same meaning and the same reading:智 means Wisdom
知 means Wisdom and is the character I am currently using in my name.

The third character is for え(e)
恵 means Blessing/Favor/Grace

絵 means Picture or Drawing and it is the character I am currently using for my name.


The fourth, and final, character is for る(ru) and they both mean lapis lazuli
琉 which is the character I am using right now

瑠 which is more common that the other.
 So right now I am using 莉知絵琉
I can either keep my name like that (which is hard to read) or change it.
I like either 玲智恵瑠 or 黎智恵瑠 best, I just need to see if they’re readable.
Only reason I haven’t changed it yet is because I already have written all over things, I have a handmade hanko with and I’d have to thoroughly go through and change all of those things if I ever change my name.


Oh well… I guess if I do it though I better do it sooner rather than later.

If I’m having this much trouble deciding the kanji for my name then naming kids in Japan, China, and wherever else they use Kanji for names must be a pain…