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My co-worker is Japanese (Megumi, goes by Meg) and her husband is British (English/Scottish). They recently named their daughter Kirie (桐絵). They're pretty open about the fact they lifted it from the comic Uzumaki by Junji Ito, because they're both huge comic/horror nerds. They fully anticipated it being pronounced ki-ree or kee-ree amongst English speakers and kee-r/lee-ey (or something like that?) in Japanese, especially because most English people can't do a Japanese l/r sound. And yeah, I think it's not-my-style but pretty cool, certainly unique.

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By the same token, I worked before in my previous job with a woman called Tomoko (she was my age, I gather that -ko names are on the way out, so I remembered it) with a really, really common, really English surname - so, like, Tomoko Smith or something. Nobody really batted an eyelid. I only remember her because she was nice-ish but so, so, so anal-retentive it drove me insane.

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So basically, imho, I think if you want, you can go for a quite Japanese name and it'd still be okay in the UK, and, for me at least, it's fine if it's a name that's pronounced different in English and Japanese as well, as long as you expect that to happen and if it doesn't bother you. (I mean, my name's Lorena. I get called some very, very weird pronunciations of my name, and standard pronunciations vary between languages. I just accept it now.)

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So, names that can work in Japanese and English, I think...

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Aimi
Aki
Ami
Anna
Aya
Ema
Emi
Erika
Hana
Hina
Kara
Karen / Karin
Kari
Karina
Mai / Mei
Mari
Maria
Marie
Marina
Marisa
Maya
Mika
Miki
Mira
Miri
Naomi
Nara
Noa
Rina
Sakura (people know what Sakura blossoms are, it's been used a lot in media, etc)
Sara
Saya
Takara
Yuki

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These are quite simple, I think you could easily go for something more elaborate. I included names that I think would be the same in English and Japanese (like, I guess, Miki and Hana) and names that would be pronounced differently (Aimi, Marie, Naomi etc) but which are still recognisable as names and are composed of native sounds in both languages. And stuff like Sakura and Yuki, because they're not English names, but I don't think the majority of English speakers would struggle with them.

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Another option is like my co-worker, a Japanese name with an English nickname, like Megumi "Meg". So like... I dunno... Natsumi "Nat" (I personally don't like Nat, but you get the idea...)

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I don't know much about Japanese culture, and don't speak the language beyond trying to learn a little bit as a teen, but I hope that maybe I've given you some ideas?

This message was edited 5/6/2017, 12:54 PM