Japanese girl names carry their meaning in the characters used to write them, so one sound can be built from different kanji and mean something new each time. Ai written 愛 is love. The same Ai written 藍 is indigo.
That gives parents room to choose more than a pleasant sound. You can pick the exact idea the name will hold, from cherry blossom and firefly to wisdom, harmony, and snow.
Below are 100 Japanese girl names with their kanji, meanings, pronunciations, and the writers, athletes, and folk figures who have carried them.
Popularity at a Glance
The most popular names on this list in the United States, 1965 to 2025: Rio, Akari, Aya, Hana and Emi.
100 Japanese Girl Names and Meanings
Japanese can be written with kanji, which are characters representing syllables or words. Or they can be written with hiragana, which are similar to single letters, and katakana, which are like hiragana but used predominantly for foreign words.
Since several kanji may have the same sound, one name can be written in different ways, with various kanji. For this reason, when we give definitions in this article for Japanese girl names, we often provide several options.
Whether you’re looking for unusual female Japanese names or a more common one, there should be something you’ll find intriguing on this list.
1. Ai
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 愛 love, affection, or 藍 indigo
- Pronunciation: AH-ee
Two letters, two very different pictures. Written 愛, Ai is love and affection. Written 藍, it is indigo, the deep blue that dyed Japanese workwear and kimono for centuries. Parents who like the sound still get to choose which idea the name carries.
Written with an accent as Ái, it turns into something else entirely, a masculine name from Norse mythology meaning great-grandfather or ancestor. A family with both Japanese and Norse roots has an unusually neat option here.
2. Aiko
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 愛子, love, affection plus child
- Pronunciation: AH-ee-koh
- Popularity: #2,720 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (63 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 71% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.
Aiko means love, affection, and child, the ai of the entry above with 子 added to the end.
It was a fashionable choice a century ago. Aiko first reached Japan’s top ten girls’ names in 1917, peaked at number four in 1924, and had dropped out of the ten again by 1932.
Names ending in ko fell steadily out of favor in Japan from the mid-1980s on, which is part of why Aiko reads as classic rather than dated to an American ear. Ai works as a short form if three syllables feel like a lot on a newborn.
3. Aimi
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 愛美, love, affection plus beautiful
- Pronunciation: AH-ee-mee
- Variations: Aime (Estonian), Amy (English)
The kanji most often paired for Aimi are 愛 and 美, love and beauty, which is about as direct as a name gets.
It has quiet cousins elsewhere. Aimi is an Estonian form of Aime and an occasionally used English variant spelling of Amy. All three trace back to the idea of being beloved, so the meaning survives every border it crosses.
4. Aina
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 愛菜, love, affection plus vegetables, greens
- Pronunciation: AH-ee-nah
Aina takes the same 愛 for love and pairs it with 菜, the character for greens and leaf vegetables. The result reads as affection with something growing in it.
That combination makes it a cool Japanese girls’ name for parents drawn to an earthy or nature vibe without reaching for Willow or Fern. It also sits close enough to Aine and Ayna that English speakers rarely stumble.
5. Airi
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 愛莉 or 愛梨, love, affection plus white jasmine or pear
- Pronunciation: AH-ee-ree
- Namesakes: Airi Suzuki, Japanese singer, model and radio host
Airi joins 愛, love, to either 莉 for white jasmine or 梨 for pear, so the whole name reads as love in flower or in fruit. Airi Suzuki, who came up through Japanese idol groups and now works as a singer, model, and radio host, is the best known bearer. It is built on the same 愛 as Ai at the top of this list, which makes the two natural sisters.
6. Akane
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 茜, deep red
- Pronunciation: ah-KAH-neh
Akane is written with one character, 茜, and means deep red. The word names the madder plant, whose roots gave Japan one of its oldest dyes, so the color it points to is a warm rusty crimson rather than a fire-engine red.
Single-kanji names have an unfussy confidence to them. Nothing is being balanced or combined; the name simply is the color. If you want something that reads as strong without sounding severe, Akane is one of the best options on this list.
7. Akari
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 明里 or 朱里, bright or vermilion red plus village or white jasmine
- Pronunciation: ah-KAH-ree
Akari combines a first character meaning bright or vermilion red with a second meaning village or white jasmine. As an ordinary Japanese word, akari is simply a light, the kind you switch on in a dark room.
Japan’s ASTRO-F infrared space telescope was nicknamed Akari for that reason, and its job was to map the sky in near, mid, and far-infrared. A name meaning the light you can see, borrowed for a telescope built to find the light you cannot, is a good thing to be able to tell a child.
8. Akemi
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 明美, bright plus beautiful
- Pronunciation: ah-KEH-mee
Akemi means bright and beautiful, most often written 明美.
It is used for boys and girls, and by long tradition the two versions are written with different kanji even though they sound identical. That is worth knowing if the name will ever be written out in Japanese: the characters, not the sound, carry the meaning.
9. Aki
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 秋 autumn, 晶 clear, crystal, or 明 bright
- Pronunciation: AH-kee
Aki can be autumn (秋), clear or crystal (晶), or bright (明), and the choice sits entirely in the character.
It travels further than most names here. Aki is also a Serbian short form of Alexander and a Finnish shortening of Jehoiakim, which means raised by god. It is used for boys as well in Japan, so it is worth deciding how you feel about that before you settle on it.
10. Akiko
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 秋子 autumn child, 明子 bright child, or 晶子 crystal child
- Pronunciation: ah-KEE-koh
Akiko is Aki with 子, child, added. Written 秋子 it means autumn child, which makes it an obvious pick for a daughter born between September and November.
The other readings hold up just as well. 明子 gives bright child and 晶子 gives clear or crystal child, so the same three syllables can be aimed at a season, a temperament, or a stone.
11. Akira
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 明, 昭, 亮 or 晶, bright or clear
- Pronunciation: ah-KEE-rah
- Popularity: #983 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (257 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, down 14% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.
Akira means bright or clear, and at least four common kanji spell it.
It is one of the very few Japanese names to have reached the U.S. top 1,000. Between 2006 and 2012 it went to somewhere between 270 and 424 American girls a year. In Japan it reads as more masculine and in the United States it does not, which is a split worth understanding before you commit to it.
12. Ami
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 亜美, second or Asia plus beautiful
- Pronunciation: AH-mee
Ami is usually written 亜美, joining a character carrying the sense of second or Asia to 美, beautiful.
The spelling works almost everywhere. It reads as a short form of Amelia or Amy in English, as ami, friend, in French, and as itself in Japan. Few names on this list ask so little of the people saying them.
13. Aoi
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 葵 hollyhock, or 蒼 and 碧 blue, green
- Pronunciation: AH-oh-ee
- Popularity: #10,184 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (9 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Steady in the United States, up 14% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.
Aoi is the Japanese word for blue when written 蒼 or 碧, and the hollyhock flower when written 葵.
It sat ninth among newborn Japanese girls in 2020, one place down on the year before, with the 葵 spelling eighth on its own. English speakers often want to squeeze it into one syllable. It is three, ah-oh-ee, and worth practicing out loud before you settle on it.
14. Asami
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 麻美, hemp plus beautiful
- Pronunciation: ah-SAH-mee
Asami is most often 麻美, hemp and beauty, hemp being a plant with a long and practical history in Japan rather than an odd thing to name a daughter for.
It doubles as a surname, where the usual spelling changes to 浅海 and the meaning to shallow sea. Same sound, different characters, different picture. It is the clearest small example of how Japanese names actually work.
15. Asuka
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 飛鳥 to fly plus bird, or 明日香 tomorrow plus fragrance
- Pronunciation: AH-soo-kah
Asuka means to fly, bird when written 飛鳥, or tomorrow’s fragrance when written 明日香.
Wrestler Kanako Urai has competed as Asuka since signing with WWE in 2015, which has given the name real visibility outside Japan. The sound is punchy, the romanized spelling is phonetic, and there is no nickname for anyone to argue about.
16. Atsuko
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 温子, 篤子 or 敦子, warm, sincere or honest plus child
- Pronunciation: AHT-soo-koh
- Namesakes: Atsuko Hirayanagi, film director
Atsuko pairs child with a character meaning warm, sincere, or honest, depending on the spelling. Any of the three describes the sort of person most parents hope they are raising.
Japanese American director Atsuko Hirayanagi made the short film Oh Lucy!, which collected awards across the festival circuit and grew into an award-winning feature. The opening consonant cluster trips some English speakers. Say it AHT-soo-koh and it settles fast.
17. Aya
- Origin: Japanese; also used in Arabic
- Meaning: 彩 color, or 綾 design, figured silk
- Pronunciation: AH-yah
- Variations: Ayah
Aya means color when written 彩 and design or figured silk when written 綾.
It turns up on top 100 lists well outside Japan, though partly because Aya is also a girls’ name of Arabic origin and a transcription of آية, or Ayah. Families who want the Arabic form usually spell it Ayah, which is the one place the two traditions part company.
18. Ayaka
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 彩花, color plus flower
- Pronunciation: ah-YAH-kah
- Namesakes: Ayaka, singer-songwriter
Ayaka means color and flower, written 彩花, with 華 or 香 sometimes standing in for the second character to shade the same idea slightly differently.
Singer-songwriter Ayaka recorded an MTV Unplugged special shortly before stepping away from music with Graves disease, then felt well enough to return two years later. The name has a lift to it that suits that story.
19. Ayako
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 彩子 or 絢子, color, design or brilliant fabric design plus child
- Pronunciation: ah-YAH-koh
Ayako is Aya with 子, child, on the end: color child, or design child.
The third spelling is the interesting one. 絢 also reads aya and means brilliant fabric design or kimono pattern, so 絢子 gives a name closer to child of a beautiful woven pattern. For a family with any connection to textiles, that is hard to beat.
20. Ayame
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 菖蒲, iris
- Pronunciation: ah-YAH-meh
Ayame is the iris, and Japan has its own. Iris sanguinea grows on an unbranched stem up to 90 centimeters tall and carries one to three flowers, ranging through purple, purple-red, and violet, with a rare white form.
Irises show up on screens, kimono, and in garden design, so the name arrives with a whole visual tradition attached to it. It shortens neatly to Aya.
21. Ayane
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 彩音, color plus sound
- Pronunciation: ah-YAH-neh
Ayane reads literally as colorful sound, joining 彩 to 音.
It belongs to the newer wave of Japanese girls’ names built for how they sound rather than handed down. Ayane is also a recurring character in the Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden games, which is either a point in its favor or a reason to keep scrolling, depending on your household.
22. Chiaki
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 千秋, a thousand autumns
- Pronunciation: chee-AH-kee
- Namesakes: Chiaki Mukai, surgeon and astronaut
Chiaki means a thousand autumns, written 千秋, and the phrase carries a sense of a very long stretch of time.
Cardiovascular surgeon Chiaki Mukai became the first Japanese woman in space in 1994 and, after a second mission in 1998, the first Japanese person to fly twice. If you want a name attached to a woman who did something difficult first, this is it.
23. Chie
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 千恵 a thousand blessings, 千枝 a thousand branches, or 智恵 wisdom and blessing
- Pronunciation: CHEE-eh
Chie usually opens with 千, thousand, and closes with a character read e, which is where the variety comes from. 千恵 is a thousand blessings, 千栄 a thousand prosperities, 智栄 flourishing wisdom, and 千映 a thousand shines.
Parents pick it when they want to wish something abundant on a daughter rather than describe her. Chiyo, further down this list, is built on the same 千 and would make a natural sibling name.
24. Chihiro
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 千尋, a thousand fathoms
- Pronunciation: chee-HEE-roh
Chihiro is 千尋, a thousand fathoms, where the second character measures the span of a pair of outstretched arms. Read as depth, the name means immeasurably deep.
Spirited Away tells the story of 10-year-old Chihiro Ogino, her family’s accidental brush with the supernatural, and her quest to put things right (1). For a generation of parents outside Japan that film is the entire introduction to the name, and it is a good one.
25. Chika
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 千花 a thousand flowers, 千佳 a thousand good things, or 智佳 good wisdom
- Pronunciation: CHEE-kah
Chika can be a thousand flowers, a thousand good things, or good wisdom, depending on which pair of characters is used.
American rapper Jane Chika Oranika records as CHIKA and was nominated for Best New Artist at the 63rd Grammy Awards in 2021. The name is quick to say, hard to mispronounce, and comes with no obvious nickname, which plenty of parents count as a feature.
26. Chikako
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 千香子, thousand plus fragrance plus child
- Pronunciation: chee-KAH-koh
Chikako is usually 千香子, which reads as child of a thousand fragrances. Swap the middle character and the thousand attaches to something else instead, the standing pattern for every name built on 千.
Actress Chikako Fukuyama, a University of Hawaii graduate who works out of Los Angeles, is one of the few bearers American readers are likely to have come across. Three syllables, all of them regular.
27. Chinatsu
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 千夏, a thousand summers
- Pronunciation: chee-NAHT-soo
Chinatsu means a thousand summers. For a July baby it is about as on the nose as a Japanese name gets, and it stays lovely long after the birthday passes.
Artist Chinatsu Ban is best known for large, bright work built around elephants, with a following in Japanese feminist and liberal circles. The name has a bounce to it that suits her paintings.
28. Chiyo
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 千代 or 千世, a thousand generations or a thousand worlds
- Pronunciation: CHEE-yoh
- Namesakes: Chiyo Uno, novelist
Chiyo means a thousand generations or a thousand worlds, depending on whether the second character is 代 or 世. Either way it is a name about time and continuation rather than appearance.
Novelist Chiyo Uno published Confessions of Love in 1932 and was as widely discussed for her private life as for her writing. She did exactly as she pleased, and the name has kept some of that nerve.
29. Chiyoko
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 千代子, a thousand generations plus child
- Pronunciation: chee-YOH-koh
Chiyoko is Chiyo with 子 added, so it reads as child of a thousand generations.
The name had an industrial life too. Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko, the company that made Minolta cameras, went by Chiyoko for years before taking the Minolta name in 1962. A name that spent decades stamped on lenses has a certain sturdiness to it.
30. Chō
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 蝶, butterfly
- Pronunciation: choh
Chō means butterfly, written with the single character 蝶.
It is short even by Japanese standards, one syllable with a held vowel, and rare in modern use. The macron over the o is doing real work: it marks that held sound, and dropping it in English writing turns the name into a different word altogether. Expect to explain the mark more than once.
31. Ema
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 恵麻 or 江麻, favor, benefit or bay, inlet plus flax
- Pronunciation: EH-mah
Ema is written 恵麻 or 江麻, joining favor or an inlet of water to 麻, flax.
The word also names something you can hold. Ema are the small wooden plaques, often horse-shaped, that visitors to Shinto and Buddhist shrines write wishes on and hang up, a practice that grew out of donating actual horses to shrines to win the favor of the gods.
For an English-speaking family there is an obvious side benefit. Ema sits right next to Emma without being it.
32. Emi
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 絵美 beautiful picture, or 恵美 blessed beauty
- Pronunciation: EH-mee
Written 絵美, Emi means beautiful picture. Written 恵美 it means blessed beauty. Both spellings are common and neither needs explaining.
The word emi also exists in Japanese as a smile, which is the sort of coincidence parents tend to enjoy. It sits comfortably in front of almost any surname, Japanese or not.
33. Etsuko
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 悦子, joy plus child
- Pronunciation: EHT-soo-koh
Etsuko is 悦子, child of joy, and it belongs to the same generation of ko names as Keiko and Junko.
The joy in Etsuko is narrower than it looks. 悦 means delight or being pleased, where Keiko can be built on 恵, favour, or 慶, celebration. Etsuko reads as a private good mood rather than a public occasion, which suits a name that was never flashy. It also stays clear in English: three even beats, EHT-soo-koh, with a hard t that keeps it from blurring the way Emiko and Eriko sometimes do.
34. Fusae
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: House of blessing or kindness, in one kanji combination
- Pronunciation: foo-SAH-eh
- Namesakes: Fusae Ichikawa, suffragist and politician
One kanji combination for Fusae reads as house of blessing, or house of kindness.
Fusae Ichikawa co-founded the New Women’s Association and spent decades at the center of the Japanese women’s suffrage movement. Legislation passed in 1945 gave women over 20 the vote. The name is uncommon now, in Japan as much as anywhere else, so it comes without a crowd attached.
35. Fuyuko
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 冬子, winter child
- Pronunciation: foo-YOO-koh
Fuyuko is 冬子, winter child, with no second reading to weigh up. What you see is what it means.
For a December or January baby it is the cleanest option on this list, and it is uncommon enough now that a Fuyuko is unlikely to ever meet another. Yuko works as a short form if the full name feels heavy on a newborn.
36. Hana
- Origin: Japanese; the spelling also exists in Hebrew, Arabic, Kurdish, Maori and Hawaiian
- Meaning: 花 or 華, flower
- Pronunciation: HAH-nah
- Variations: Hannah, Hanna
As a Japanese name, Hana means flower, written 花 or 華.
It also exists independently in a remarkable number of languages. Hana is an English transcription of Hannah, meaning grace; an Arabic name meaning contentment and happiness; Kurdish for hope; Maori for radiance; and Hawaiian for work or craft. Very few names on this list will feel at home in so many places.
37. Hanae
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 花絵 or 華恵, flower plus picture or favor, benefit
- Pronunciation: hah-NAH-eh
- Popularity: #15,737 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (5 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Falling in the United States, down 16% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.
Hanae takes flower and adds a character meaning picture, favor, or benefit.
It became a fashionable girls’ name in France in the 1990s, and the accented spelling Hanaé overtook the plain one after 2009. By 2015 there were 128 French Hanaes to 255 Hanaés. Useful to know if the name will be used in Europe, because the accent is the default there and it is not Japanese.
38. Hanako
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 花子, flower child
- Pronunciation: hah-NAH-koh
Hanako is flower child, 花子, and it has long served as the Japanese equivalent of Jane Doe on sample forms and paperwork.
It also belongs to a ghost. Hanako-san is a schoolyard legend about a girl who haunts the third stall of the girls’ bathroom, and children dare each other to knock three times and ask whether she is in there. Most Japanese children hear that story before they turn ten, which is worth weighing if the name will be used in Japan.
39. Haru
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 春 spring, or 晴 clear weather
- Pronunciation: HAH-roo
Haru is springtime, sunlight, or clear and sunny weather, and it is used freely for boys and girls.
It is the kind of name that fits a newborn and a grown adult equally well, which is not true of everything here. If your daughter arrives on a bright morning in April, the case makes itself.
40. Haruka
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 遥 distant, remote, or 春花 spring flower
- Pronunciation: hah-ROO-kah
- Namesakes: Haruka Tachimoto, Olympic judo champion
Haruka can mean spring flower or spring fragrance, or, written 遥, distant and far off. The second reading gives it a wistfulness the first does not have.
Judoka Haruka Tachimoto won Olympic gold in 2016. Judoka is written 柔道家: 柔道 for judo and 家, ka, for a person with real expertise in something.
Haru sits inside it as a ready-made short form, and is a full name in its own right further up this list.
41. Haruko
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 春子 spring child, or 陽子 sun child
- Pronunciation: hah-ROO-koh
Haruko usually means spring child, though 陽子 gives sun child instead.
Singer, songwriter, and voice actress Haruko Momoi produces the all-female group Junjo no Afilia, whose members work in Japanese maid cafes. The name is warm without being sweet and has aged better than most of the ko names of its generation.
42. Hibiki
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: Sound, echo, resonance
- Pronunciation: hee-BEE-kee
Hibiki means sound or echo, the resonance a note leaves behind after it is struck.
It reads as contemporary in Japan and is used across genders. In the manga series Hibiki’s Magic, the title character is a wizard’s apprentice with almost no talent for magic who ends up handed a professorship at a prestigious academy anyway. The name suits a child who makes an impression without raising her voice.
43. Hikari
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 光, light
- Pronunciation: hee-KAH-ree
Hikari means light, written 光.
That single character travels. The same kanji appears in Sino-Vietnamese, where it keeps the meaning but is read Quang, and in Japanese it can also be read Hikaru. Hikaru can be written 輝 instead, meaning brightness, so two names, two readings, and two characters overlap in one small tidy knot.
For English speakers it is easy: three regular syllables and no letters doing anything unexpected.
44. Himiko
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: Read as princess, or as hime plus miko, princess-priestess
- Pronunciation: hee-MEE-koh
- Namesakes: Queen Himiko of Yamatai, third century
Himiko is the oldest name on this list by a wide margin. She ruled the polity of Yamatai in the third century and is recorded in the Chinese Wei Zhi, written around 297 CE, which describes a shaman queen occupied with magic and attended by a thousand women.
Scholars read the name either as the Old Japanese Pimeko, princess, or as hime plus miko, giving princess-priestess. Her people are said to have turned to her after decades of chaos across the islands.
It is a heavy name to hand a baby, which is rather the point. Nobody else in the class will have it.
45. Hina
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 陽菜, light, sun or day plus vegetables, greens
- Pronunciation: HEE-nah
- Popularity: #4,490 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (31 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 50% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.
Hina joins a character for light, sun, or day to 菜, greens.
It has topped the Japanese girls’ charts more often than anything else here, taking first place in 2003, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2011, and 2015 with the 陽菜 spelling. That is a genuinely long run at the top.
English speakers will hear it as a cousin of Nina, which makes it one of the easiest names on this list to use abroad. Parents who want a name that is current in Japan rather than borrowed from an older generation will not find a stronger example here.
46. Hinata
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 日向 sunny place, or 陽向 toward the sun
- Pronunciation: hee-NAH-tah
Hinata means a sunny place, or turned toward the sun.
It is also the clearest illustration on this list of how tangled Japanese writing gets. 陽向 reads Hinata and means towards the sun. 日向 also reads Hinata and means sunny place. And 向日葵, properly read Himawari and meaning sunflower, gets read as Hinata anyway. One name, three spellings, and a sunflower hiding in the third.
47. Hiroko
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 寛子, 裕子 or 浩子, tolerant, abundant or prosperous plus child
- Pronunciation: hee-ROH-koh
Hiroko pairs child with a character meaning tolerant, generous, abundant, or prosperous. Whichever spelling you choose, the name is a wish for a large life rather than a pretty one.
It is common enough among Japanese women born in the middle of the last century that it reads as a mother’s or grandmother’s name there, and as completely fresh almost everywhere else.
48. Hitomi
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 瞳 pupil of the eye, or 仁美 compassionate beauty
- Pronunciation: hee-TOH-mee
Hitomi is 瞳, the pupil of the eye, or 仁美, which reads closer to compassionate beauty.
The first meaning is what makes it interesting. Naming a daughter for the part of the eye that lets the light in is a quieter image than naming her for a flower, and it gives the name a seriousness that survives translation into any language.
49. Homare
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: Honor, glory, reputation
- Pronunciation: hoh-MAH-reh
- Namesakes: Homare Sawa, FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year 2011
Homare means honor, glory, and reputation.
Homare Sawa earned all three. Her extra-time goal in the 2011 World Cup final pulled Japan level with the United States at 2-2 and sent the match to penalties, which Japan won. She was named FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year the same year and came home a national hero.
Naming a daughter Homare hands her a word that Sawa spent a career earning.
50. Honoka
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 和花 or 穂香, harmony plus flower, or grain plus fragrance
- Pronunciation: hoh-NOH-kah
Honoka usually reads as harmony flower.
Getting there takes a detour. When 和 is used for the hono part, the harmony meaning comes through a nanori reading, one of the special readings reserved for names. Nanori readings have fallen out of fashion, so Honoka is now most often written in hiragana as ほのか instead, which means the name is chosen purely for its sound and carries no character meaning at all.
51. Hoshi
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 星, star
- Pronunciation: HOH-shee
Hoshi means star.
The spelling Hōshi, with a held o, belongs to something else worth knowing about. Hōshi Ryokan, a traditional inn at the Awazu Onsen hot springs, was founded in 718 and has been run by the same family for 46 generations. Very few businesses anywhere have a run like that.
As a name, Hoshi keeps the plain star meaning, and it is worth writing it without the mark so the two do not get confused.
52. Hoshiko
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 星子, star child
- Pronunciation: hoh-SHEE-koh
- Namesakes: Hoshiko Yamane, violinist and composer
Hoshiko is star child.
Violinist and composer Hoshiko Yamane, born in Japan and long based in Germany, plays with the electronic group Tangerine Dream. For a name this literal, having a bearer who works in ambient electronic music is a pleasing coincidence.
53. Hotaru
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 蛍, firefly
- Pronunciation: hoh-TAH-roo
Hotaru means firefly, and fireflies carry real weight in Japanese poetry and film as an image of something beautiful that does not last.
Hotaru Tomoe is a character in the Sailor Moon franchise, which is how most readers outside Japan first meet the name. The firefly image is the part people remember, so expect to tell the story more than once.
54. Ichiyo
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: Uncertain; best known as a literary pen name
- Pronunciation: ee-CHEE-yoh
- Namesakes: Higuchi Ichiyo, writer
Ichiyo was the pen name of Natsuko Higuchi, Japan’s first professional woman writer of modern literature, whose stories centered on the poor and particularly on poor women. She chose the characters herself, so the name has no settled dictionary meaning the way most on this list do.
Her portrait went onto the 5,000 yen banknote in autumn 2004, making her the third woman to appear on Japanese currency after Empress Jingu in 1881 and Murasaki Shikibu in 2000. Choosing this name is choosing a writer.
55. Izumi
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 泉, fountain, spring
- Pronunciation: ee-ZOO-mee
- Popularity: #5,999 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (20 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 63% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.
Izumi is a spring or fountain, written with the single character 泉, which pictures water coming up out of the ground.
It is technically unisex and used far more for girls. In the United States in 2014 it went to 14 girls and to no boys at all. The i-z-u opening is unusual in English and gives the name a lift that most three-syllable names never manage.
56. Jakuchō
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: Silent, lonely listening
- Pronunciation: JAH-koo-choh
- Namesakes: Jakuchō Setouchi, novelist and Buddhist nun
Jakuchō means silent, lonely listening, and it was a religious name rather than a birth name.
Jakuchō Setouchi took it when she was ordained as a Buddhist nun. She won multiple literary awards for her novels and translations after years of being dismissed as a pornographer by Japan’s largely male literary establishment, who objected to her writing about an affair and a divorce. She outlasted every one of them.
57. Jun
- Origin: Japanese; the same syllable exists in Chinese
- Meaning: 純 pure, 潤 moisture, or 順 obedience
- Pronunciation: joon
Jun means pure, clean, simple, or moisture, depending on the character, and it is used for boys and girls alike.
The same sound exists in Chinese, where Jun means ruler, king. It can also carry talented, handsome, or army there, though those readings are usually reserved for boys. One syllable, no ambiguity in English, and a natural fit as a middle name.
58. Junko
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 純子 or 順子, pure or obedient plus child
- Pronunciation: JOON-koh
Junko is Jun with child added: pure child, or obedient child.
Pronunciation shifts around Japan between JOON-koh and JOONG-koh. In an English-speaking country you will get neither. You will get JUNK-oh, and no amount of correcting will fix it, so this is a name to think hard about before using it outside Japan.
59. Kaede
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 楓, maple
- Pronunciation: kah-EH-deh
- Namesakes: Kaede Dobashi, singer and dancer
Kaede is the maple tree, and Japanese maples turn a red that draws autumn crowds much the way cherry blossom draws spring ones.
The name is unisex and increasingly common in Japan. Dancer and singer Kaede Dobashi performs under the single name Kaede with the groups Happiness and E-Girls. Say it ka-e-de, with the middle syllable sounded rather than glided over.
60. Kanako
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 加奈子 or 香菜子, increase or fragrance plus greens plus child
- Pronunciation: kah-NAH-koh
Kanako is built from characters for increase or fragrance, greens, and child.
The middle element, 菜 for greens, turns up all over modern Japanese girls’ names: Aina and Hina both use it. Pairing it with 子 gives Kanako one foot in the current fashion and one in the older ko tradition, which is a rare balance on this list. That makes it a natural sibling name for an Aina or a Hina.
61. Kanna
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 栞菜, bookmark plus greens
- Pronunciation: KAHN-nah
Kanna comes from an unlikely pairing of characters meaning bookmark and vegetables.
It is also the common name of the South African succulent Sceletium tortuosum, traditionally used there as a mood remedy. That connection is trivia rather than a reason to choose the name or avoid it.
62. Kaori
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 香 fragrance, or 香織 fragrance plus weaving
- Pronunciation: kah-OH-ree
Kaori means fragrance or aroma, and occasionally perfume.
Written 香織 it reads as fragrance and weaving instead, and the same 香 can be read Kaoru, which is a separate name entirely. Three syllables, ka-o-ri, each one sounded fully. It has never been popular enough to feel dated.
63. Karen
- Origin: Japanese; the spelling also exists in Danish and English
- Meaning: 華蓮, flower plus lotus, water lily
- Pronunciation: KAH-ren
The Japanese Karen, written 華蓮, means flower and lotus or water lily. It arrived at the same spelling as the Danish Karen by a completely separate route.
That makes it a genuinely workable pick for a family with mixed heritage, since it needs no explaining on either side. The obvious catch is the stereotype attached to the name in English-speaking countries at the moment, which shows no sign of fading.
64. Kasumi
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 霞 mist, or 花澄 flower plus clear, pure
- Pronunciation: kah-SOO-mee
Kasumi is mist, the soft spring haze that sits over hills, or, with different characters, flower and clarity.
A Japanese destroyer carried the name and escorted tankers supporting the attack on Pearl Harbor; she was sunk by aircraft from U.S. Task Force 58 on April 7, 1945. That history sits behind the name whether or not anyone raises it.
The word itself is gentle and the three syllables move quickly.
65. Kazue
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 和枝 or 一恵, harmony or one plus branch or favor, benefit
- Pronunciation: kah-ZOO-eh
- Namesakes: Kazue Sawai, koto player and composer
Kazue means peace or harmony joined to favor, benefit, or branch.
Kazue Sawai is a koto player and composer known for free improvisation and contemporary classical work. The koto is Japan’s national instrument, a plucked half-tube zither whose most common form carries 13 strings. A musician’s name tied to the national instrument makes for good family lore.
66. Kazuko
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 和子 or 一子, harmony or one plus child
- Pronunciation: kah-ZOO-koh
- Popularity: Last listed among U.S. girls’ names in 1945 at #4,901 (5 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data, and below the five-births-a-year cutoff since.
Kazuko usually reads as peace child or harmony child.
Japanese names almost never reach the U.S. top 1,000, which is what makes 1927 worth a mention: Kazuko charted at number 954 that year. It never came back, so a Kazuko born now would be the only one most Americans have ever met.
67. Kei
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 恵 blessing, 慶 celebrate, or 圭 gemstone
- Pronunciation: kay
Kei can mean intelligent, celebratory, or gemstone, and it is used freely for boys and girls.
It has an unexpected double abroad. Kei is also an old Frisian nickname for boys meaning victory or brave spear. And some of the kanji read as Kei can be read Megumi instead, which appears on this same list as a name in its own right. One syllable, spelled the way it sounds.
68. Keiko
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 慶子, 敬子 or 恵子, celebration, respect or blessing plus child
- Pronunciation: KAY-koh
Keiko means blessed child, respectful child, or celebrated child, depending on which character sits in front of 子.
It may be the best known Japanese girls’ name in the United States, and not because of a person. Keiko was the orca who played the title role in Free Willy, and public fundraising after the film paid for his rehabilitation and eventual return to the wild. Most Americans over thirty will make that connection first, so it is worth knowing about before you choose it.
69. Koyuki
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 小雪, small or light snow
- Pronunciation: koh-YOO-kee
Koyuki means small snow, the first thin fall of the season rather than a blizzard.
Koyuki Higashi and Hiroko Masuhara held a wedding ceremony at Tokyo Disneyland in 2012 that drew wide attention, since Japan does not legally recognize same-sex marriage. The name is delicate without tipping into fragile, and Yuki works as a short form.
70. Mai
- Origin: Japanese; the spelling also exists in Vietnamese and Scandinavian languages
- Meaning: 舞 dance, or 麻衣 linen robe
- Pronunciation: my
Mai means dance when written 舞, or linen robe when written 麻衣.
Its reach is unusual. Mai is the month of May in Norwegian and Estonian, a Sino-Vietnamese girls’ name meaning plum or apricot, and a Danish, Norwegian, and Estonian short form of Maria. English speakers say it exactly like the word my, which nobody gets wrong.
71. Masako
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 雅子 elegant, graceful plus child, or 正子 right, proper plus child
- Pronunciation: mah-SAH-koh
Masako joins child to a character meaning elegant and graceful, or to one meaning right and proper.
Hojo Masako co-ruled the Kamakura shogunate after her husband Minamoto no Yoritomo died, which is why history calls her the nun shogun. When the Jokyu War broke out in 1221 she rallied the shogunate’s warriors with a speech that kept them on her side. The name has carried that weight ever since, and it still sounds composed rather than martial.
72. Mayumi
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 真弓 true bow, or 真由美, true, reason and beauty
- Pronunciation: mah-YOO-mee
Mayumi can mean spindle tree, elegant bow, or the run of true, reason, and beauty, depending on the characters. The spindle tree reading is the oldest of the three, since its wood was used to make bows, which is how 真弓 came to read as a genuine bow.
Brazilian esports player Mayumi has become a fixture in League of Legends and a reference point for other women in competitive gaming. Of the three readings, the spindle tree is the one carrying the most history.
73. Megumi
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 恵 or 愛, favor, benefit, love, affection
- Pronunciation: meh-GOO-mee
Megumi means favor, benefit, love, or affection, and in everyday Japanese the word megumi means a blessing or a grace.
It is a single-word name rather than a compound, which gives it a directness that the built-from-two-halves names do not have. Megu works as a short form, though most Megumis abroad simply keep all three syllables.
74. Mei
- Origin: Japanese; the spelling also exists in Chinese
- Meaning: 芽依 or 芽衣, bud, sprout plus rely on or clothing
- Pronunciation: may
Mei means budding life, built on 芽, the sprout pushing up out of a seed.
It is also a Chinese girls’ name, where 美 means beautiful and 梅 means Chinese plum. Three languages, one syllable, and an English pronunciation that matches the month of May. If you want a Japanese name that will never be misspelled on a coffee cup, this is the one.
75. Michi
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 道, path, way
- Pronunciation: MEE-chee
Michi usually means path or way, and 道 is the same character that ends judo, aikido, and shodo. In each of those it means the discipline itself, the way of doing a thing, rather than a road.
That is a quietly ambitious idea to hand a child. It is also two easy syllables that no English speaker struggles with.
76. Midori
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 緑, green
- Pronunciation: mee-DOH-ree
Midori is simply green.
Americans are more likely to know it as the melon liqueur, which took the name for its bright green color. Japanese speakers hear the color itself, the green of new leaves rather than a paint chip.
The liqueur is the one association to weigh if the name will be used mostly in the United States.
77. Mika
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 美香 or 美加, beautiful plus fragrance or increase
- Pronunciation: MEE-kah
- Namesakes: Mika Ninagawa, photographer and director
Mika joins 美, beautiful, to a character for fragrance or increase.
Photographer Mika Ninagawa is known for saturated, high-color images built around flowers and goldfish, and she has since moved into directing films, music videos, and a Netflix series. The name is short, current, and reads as Western enough to travel without ever stopping being Japanese.
78. Moe
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 萌, bud, sprout
- Pronunciation: MOH-eh
Moe means bud or sprout, the moment a plant breaks the surface.
The spelling is the problem abroad. In English, Moe is a short form of Maurice, Morris, Maureen, or Moriah and is read as one syllable. The Japanese name is two, MOH-eh. It is also a Burmese gender-neutral name that means rain, sky, which is a great deal of meaning packed into three letters.
79. Moriko
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 森子, forest child
- Pronunciation: moh-REE-koh
Moriko means forest child, built on 森, a character made of three trees stacked together.
The near-identical Mariko Mori, who works in sculpture, digital art, and photography, founded the Faou Foundation to place permanent art installations in natural settings around the world. Close enough to make the association, different enough that the name stays your daughter’s own.
For parents who want a nature name that is not Willow, Forest, or River, Moriko does the same job in another language.
80. Murasaki
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 紫, purple
- Pronunciation: moo-rah-SAH-kee
- Namesakes: Murasaki Shikibu, author of The Tale of Genji
Murasaki means purple, and the word also names the gromwell plant whose roots produced the dye.
Murasaki Shikibu wrote The Tale of Genji in the Heian period, and it is widely regarded as one of the world’s first novels. She also left a diary and 128 poems, and her writing helped push Japanese from a spoken language into a written literature.
Murasaki was not her birth name. It was a court name, possibly taken from the color violet, while Shikibu points to the Ministry of Ceremonials where her father served. Four syllables, and worth every one of them.
81. Renho
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: Pure heart and friend, in one reading
- Pronunciation: REN-hoh
Renho can be read as pure heart and friend.
Renho Murata was the first woman to lead the Democratic Party, and its first leader of mixed heritage, when she took over in 2016. The name is barely used for babies, in Japan or anywhere else, which is either the appeal or the problem.
82. Rio
- Origin: Japanese; the spelling also exists in Spanish and Portuguese
- Meaning: 莉央 or 莉緒, white jasmine or village plus center or thread
- Pronunciation: REE-oh
Rio joins a character for white jasmine or village to one meaning center or thread.
It is also the Spanish word for river, and it has been used as a boys’ name in the United Kingdom since the late 1990s after the footballer Rio Ferdinand. The same two syllables read as a Japanese girl, a Brazilian city, and a British boy depending on where you are standing.
83. Sachie
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 幸枝 or 幸恵, happiness plus branch or favor, benefit
- Pronunciation: sah-CHEE-eh
Sachie means happiness or good luck joined to a branch or a blessing.
The sachi part is worth knowing on its own, since it carries the kind of good fortune that arrives rather than the kind you chase. Canadian vlogger Sachie has built a following on manga reviews and anime commentary, which is how a lot of younger readers first meet the name.
84. Sachiko
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 幸子, happiness plus child
- Pronunciation: sah-CHEE-koh
Sachiko is child of happiness, and it was one of the most widely used girls’ names in Japan for much of the twentieth century.
It also appears as a character in Emilie Autumn’s novel The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls. The name itself carries none of that darkness: three syllables, a clear meaning, and Sachi available as a short form.
85. Sadako
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 貞子, virtuous, chaste plus child
- Pronunciation: sah-DAH-koh
- Namesakes: Sadako Ogata, UN High Commissioner for Refugees
Sadako means true, certain, or virtuous, plus child.
Sadako Ogata served as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 1991 to 2000 and received the World Citizenship Award in 2005, an honor whose alumni include Wangari Maathai and Nelson Mandela.
One warning. For many horror-film viewers the name belongs to the ghost in Ring, and that association is not going anywhere.
86. Sakiko
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 咲子, blossom plus child
- Pronunciation: sah-KEE-koh
Sakiko is built from 咲, to blossom, and 子, child.
It is the quieter sister of Sakura and far less likely to be met on a playground abroad. For a daughter born while the trees on your street are in flower, it makes the point without shouting it.
87. Sakura
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 桜 or 咲良, cherry blossom
- Pronunciation: sah-KOO-rah
Sakura is the cherry blossom, and it is the most instantly recognizable Japanese girls’ name in the world.
Every spring Japan follows the blossom front north across the country. People gather for hanami, flower viewing, and many places host yozakura, which translates as night sakura and means viewing the blossom after dark.
The blossom lasts about a week, and in Japanese poetry that is the entire point: it is beautiful because it does not stay. That is a lot of meaning to hand a child, and it is why the name has never gone out of use.
88. Shinju
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 真珠, pearl
- Pronunciation: SHEEN-joo
Shinju means pearl, written 真珠, the same word used for the gem itself.
There is a catch worth taking seriously. Shinjū, with a held u, means a double suicide, or in modern usage the suicide of two or more people bound together by love or family. The two words differ only in vowel length, and in romanized writing that difference usually disappears. A lovely name with a difficult neighbor.
89. Shun
- Origin: Japanese; the same syllable exists in Chinese
- Meaning: 駿 fast, or 俊 talented
- Pronunciation: shoon
Shun is fast when written 駿 and talented when written 俊, and it works for boys and girls.
The same syllable exists as a Chinese unisex name meaning to obey or submit, which is a very different idea to hand a daughter. In English it collides with the verb shun, so this is a name that will need a sentence of explanation now and then.
90. Suzume
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 雀, sparrow
- Pronunciation: soo-ZOO-meh
Suzume means sparrow, the small brown bird that lives alongside people almost everywhere.
We like it a great deal and would still think twice, because English speakers will reach for Susan or Suzie inside a week. If you can hold the line on the full three syllables, it is one of the loveliest names here.
91. Takako
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 孝子 filial piety plus child, or 貴子 noble child
- Pronunciation: tah-KAH-koh
Takako has more possible meanings than almost anything else on this list, because more than a dozen kanji pairs produce the same sound.
貴子 gives noble child, 多佳子 gives many good child, 孝子 gives the child of filial piety, 嵩子 gives swell child, and 昂子 gives wise child. Choosing this name means choosing the characters as deliberately as the sound, which is exactly how Japanese naming is meant to work.
92. Takara
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 宝, treasure, jewel
- Pronunciation: tah-KAH-rah
Takara means treasure or jewel, written with a single character.
Japanese toy company Takara Co. Ltd. built the Microman and Diaclone lines that were rebranded abroad as Transformers, so a whole generation of children owed their favorite toys to a company whose name means treasure. It is used for boys as well, which is part of why it reads as confident rather than delicate.
93. Tamiko
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 多美子, many plus beautiful plus child
- Pronunciation: tah-MEE-koh
- Popularity: Last listed among U.S. girls’ names in 2002 at #15,208 (6 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data, and below the five-births-a-year cutoff since.
Tamiko is often written so that it reads as child of many beauties.
It had a genuine American run. Tamiko entered the U.S. top 1,000 in 1968 with 309 babies, skipped a year, returned in 1970, peaked in 1975 at 486, and fell off the charts after 158 uses in 1978. A whole cultural moment sits inside those five numbers.
94. Tomoe
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: Wisdom, intellect or friend plus favor, benefit
- Pronunciation: toh-MOH-eh
- Namesakes: Tomoe Gozen, warrior of The Tale of the Heike
Tomoe joins wisdom, intellect, or friend to favor and benefit.
Tomoe Gozen is the reason most people know it. She appears in The Tale of the Heike, where she commands 300 samurai against 2,000 Taira warriors and later becomes a Buddhist nun. She does not turn up in any primary record of the Genpei War, though, so historians treat her as a figure of literature rather than a documented person. That does not make her a weaker namesake, only a different kind of one.
95. Tomoko
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 智子 or 朋子, wisdom or friend plus child
- Pronunciation: toh-MOH-koh
Tomoko means wise child or friendly child.
Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath, made by photographer W. Eugene Smith in the early 1970s, shows a mother bathing her daughter, who was born with Minamata disease after industrial mercury poisoning of the local water. It brought the world’s attention to what had happened there and is one of the most consequential photographs ever taken in Japan.
The name itself is warm and everyday in Japan, in the way Sarah is everyday in English.
96. Toshiko
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 敏子 or 淑子, quick, clever, sharp plus child
- Pronunciation: toh-SHEE-koh
- Namesakes: Toshiko Kishida, Meiji-era feminist orator
Toshiko means quick, clever, sharp child.
Toshiko Kishida was a nineteenth-century feminist orator arrested repeatedly for speaking publicly about women’s rights. One line of hers has outlived nearly everything else written about the period: if it is true that men are better than women because they are stronger, why are the sumo wrestlers not in the government?
A name that means sharp, attached to a woman who was.
97. Ume
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 梅, Japanese apricot, plum
- Pronunciation: OO-meh
Ume is the Japanese apricot, Prunus mume, the tree that flowers in late winter well before the cherries do.
The ume blossom is regarded as a symbol of spring, and in Japanese tradition it was thought to ward off evil. Two syllables, and a meaning every Japanese speaker knows without being told.
98. Yasu
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 安 or 康, peace, quiet, peaceful
- Pronunciation: YAH-soo
Yasu means peaceful or smooth, and it is used for both boys and girls.
It has a second life elsewhere. Yasu is a form of Jesus traditionally used by Arabic-speaking Christians. The peaceful meaning will either suit your daughter or turn into a running family joke, and both outcomes are fine.
99. Yayoi
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: Increase plus birth, life, genuine
- Pronunciation: yah-YOH-ee
- Namesakes: Yayoi Kusama, artist
Yayoi combines characters for increase and for birth, life, and genuine, so the name reads as growth.
Yayoi Kusama, born in 1929, is described as the world’s top-selling female artist. She checked herself into a Tokyo mental-health facility in 1977 and has lived there by choice ever since, walking to a studio nearby to work on the polka dots, pumpkins, and mirrored infinity rooms that made her famous.
Few namesakes on this list have out-worked her.
100. Yui
- Origin: Japanese
- Meaning: 結衣 or 優衣, tie, bind or excellence plus clothing, garment
- Pronunciation: YOO-ee
- Popularity: #6,104 among U.S. girls’ names in 2025 (20 births), per U.S. Social Security Administration data. Rising in the United States, up 24% over the last 10 years of births against the 10 years before them.
Yui joins 結, to tie or bind, to 衣, clothing, or puts 優, excellence, in the first position instead. The binding sense is the one Japanese parents usually mean: a child who connects the people around her.
It ranked sixth among Japanese girls’ names by reading in 2020, down from third the year before. It is also one of the shortest names here to write in either alphabet.
Japanese Girl Name FAQs
Saigo No Kotoba (The Last Word)
A hundred names is a small slice of what Japanese naming offers, and the choice often comes down to a single character rather than the sound.
If two candidates feel equally good, compare the kanji behind them, then read each one aloud with your surname. Say it the way a teacher would on the first morning of school, and then the way you would call it across a garden. The name that still sounds right both ways is usually the one.
