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Japanese name suffix
    Keywords: Culture & History

Moved from sensei by Charles Matthews

moonprince: We can spend a lot of words on Japanese titles and their proper usage, so I'm trying a new page for that discussion. JapaneseTitles


Scartol: I wasn't sure where to put this question, so if there's a more appropriate place, please move it.

Can anyone provide a brief explanation of how extension names work in Japanese? I've been reading HikaruNoGo and I'm a bit unsure about when to call someone -san, -kun, etc. I understand the sensei protocol, but that's about it. Thanks.

HolIgor: Well, it depends. At the moment people of the same age (Shindo, Toya, Waya) do not use any honorific. But if Waya'd call Hikaru sensei, that would mean something sort of "fella".

Isumi is several years older therefore he is Isumi-san. Tsubaki was Tsubaki-kun for a moment to a great embarassment of the judges. But what amazed me that Mitani's sister was "Mitani no onee san" as if she had no name of her own. And the girl in the go club was simply "onee san" (elder sister). Girls become "san" much sooner than boys, because Tsutsui-san called Akari "Fujisaki-san" though she is the same age as Hikaru. And Tsutsui is one or two years older so he is rightly "Tsutsui-san".

By the way Sai is Fujiwara no Sai as if he was owned by Fujiwara family.

Bill: Fujiwara no Sai is the old-old fashioned way of saying Fujiwara Sai. "No" (of) does not denote ownership, any more than "de" (of) in Hernando De Soto or Jeanne d'Arc.

splice: Actually, I disagree to some degree with Bill's statement. It makes a lot of sense to me that Hernando De Soto would mean Hernando of the Soto family, and Fujiwara no Sai would mean Sai of the Fujiwara family. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the origin of the old way of naming people. It does not necessarily denote ownership in any way, but it does denote inclusion in a group.

Bill: Actually, splice, we agree. :-)

MrKoala: Just an historical point about Jeanne d'Arc. She used to bear her father's name ("D'Arc"), which comes from the village around which he was born ("Arc en Barrois" or "Art sur Meurthe", two close villages). I'm not sure about Hernando de Soto either, but I agree about Sai-sensei :)

Karl Knechtel: As I have remarked on KGS and elsewhere, I would be quite pleasantly amused by a translation of HikaruNoGo which rendered Sai's name as "Sai McFujiwara". ;)


About Japanese, the term for the elder sister is "onee-san" (With two "e" and one "n"). Anyway, here is my experience about Japanese titles :

  • -san = Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss : It's a mark of respect. You call someone "-san" when you don't know her very much but you don't want to be rude to her or when she has a higher (social) rank than you.
  • -sama = Lord : Big big respect :) I can't explain in which cases you call someone "-sama" other than the obvious cases ("otoosama" - instead of "otoosan" - to call your father if you have a rich family and have to show very very big big big respect to him ; or when talking to a "Lord") so if you have more info about it, feel free to provide details. It is also used when referring to "kami-sama" (kami = god/paper/hair ; choose the one that fits ;) ). A good example is a maid calling her master "Taro-sama" (Taro is used as a Japanese generic name. Nothing to do with Hanaukyo Taro :) ). I think this is rarely used nowadays. It can also be sarcastic as you can imagine.
  • -kun: Generally for male children. Also could be used when addressing a male of lesser status.

KarlKnechtel: I don't know who contributed the original bit here, but I am assured that -kun is used a fair bit for girls too, and is more to do with the supposed (believed-to-be-required) level of respect. Supposedly -chan indicates more familiarity, but the schoolgirls call each other -chan, no problem. As for Tsutsui-san referring to Akari as -san, again I think that boils down to a matter of respect - and not wanting to be interpreted as being attracted to her.

All of this business can make some anime very difficult to understand - especially (IMO) Fruits Basket, where the animation is such that it's already hard to tell everyone's gender.

I am told there exist anime series where schoolgirls who fall in love with each other (and themes like homosexuality certainly do figure more prominently in animation on the other side of the Pacific) revert to addressing each other as -san!

  • -chan = little : You say that to someone you have affection for. You generally kindly call a little child "-chan". As an example, I think that Sai-sensei once said "Why don't you buy Akari-chan some beginner books ?". You can also call a person you've known since childhood that way. That's can also be the "-kun" for the girls. If you have real affection for your elder sister, you can call her (o-)nee-chan. But it can also be used the reverse way, that is calling "-chan" someone you disrespect so much that you consider him as a child.
  • -sensei = teacher : You call someone that teaches you a particular subject "-sensei". As far as I know, it is also used for an M.D.
  • -sempai = elder : in the sense of classmate or fellow or of the same group.

Karl Knechtel: I've also seen "senpai". Is that the same thing? "Sensei" is a "teacher", but carries the connotation of being "first (eldest) among students", from what I understand - a bit of humility appropriate for the culture.

Zarlan: Senpai is the correct spelling, but it is pronunced (and therefore often spelled) sempai. When the lone N is followed by a B, P or M, it is pronunced M. Sensei doesn't actualy mean teacher. It is used for teachers, but also doctors or other important people. Examples from HikaGo: Kuwabara-sensei (he is hardly teaching the whole institiute, now When Akira is taking the pro-exam Ichikawa-san gets worried that people will insist that she should call him sensei


If some people have information about the "-han" suffix (e.g. used in kendoka families), please tell me. I know it also means "half" (like in "gomokuhan", five moku and a half), so is "Ranma-han" a play-on-words or not ? Some information about "-dono" and "-shi" would be nice also.

But I think you have to feel these titles. As a general principle, I think you call someone according to the respect YOU want to show her (for the sake of what you are to and/or what you're feeling towards the person you are referring/talking to). If you want to insist on the fact that he/she teaches you go, you will call her "sensei". You can also think : "There's been a long time since I haven't seen this man and he used to teach me go back then and I used to call him "sensei" for this reason. I'm happy to see him again and my respect for him as my former teacher hasn't changed, so I will call him "sensei" again."


BobMcGuigan- "Sensei" literally means "born before" and can be used with anyone older than the speaker. It does not specifically mean teacher, but it is also used that way, as in "high school teacher". In the context of martial arts and go it is used for teachers or anyone one wishes to show respect to for their skill. Even though Kikuchi Yasuro is not a professional go player, he would undoubtedly be addressed as sensei out of respect for his age, his teaching of many professionals, and his skill in go.

"San" is the universal suffix of politeness. Unless you are very close to someone (e.g. family member) you must use a suffix to avoid risking rudeness. "Kun" is used by males about or to a male subject when the speaker is older or the same age as the subject, and where there is a strong relationship such as fellow student. A boss might use "kun" with a valued, close subordinate. "Sama" is rarely used nowadays except in formal letter writing. "Sama" was common in feudal times when a vassal spoke to or about a lord. Forms of address are complicated by such things as relative social status of speaker and hearer and subject. You can't go far wrong in ordinary speech if you use "san". "Sensei" for teachers or doctors is OK, too.


Zarlan: I believe "Sama" is a bit more common than that. Isn't it sometimes used when talking about idols?

"Kun" is also used a bit more and I am quite certain about that. I've heard it used (in anime) by and about/to female subjects. I don't think it is used that much about/to female subjects ""Perhaps"" a little less used by female speakers too.

And now more the important issue of Sai's name: The no-particle has been used after surnames, sure. Now I am a mere animefan that is trying to learn a bit of Japanese, but wouldn't that mean that you would then write it as "surname"+"no"+"given name"? I've seen a few subtitled episodes of the anime, and there they write Fujiwara no Sai, as apposed to the manga at [ext] toriyamaworld, where they write Fujiwarano Sai. Is that because the animetranslators assumed that the name was "Sai of Fujiwara" and the mangatranslators understood that it is Fujiwarano Sai?

Fujiwara is definitely the surname. The name is indeed "Sai of Fujiwara" in the same way that "Ronald McDonald" is "Ronald of Donald". The Japanese habit of putting surnames first works harmoniously with the Japanese grammar (post-positions rather than prepositions) in this case. Running "Fujiwarano" together like that is an attempt to make the name look "normal", I presume - so that "no" isn't interpreted as some weird sort of middle initial or something. Similar perhaps to putting "Jeanne d'Arc" rather than "Jeanne de Arc".

Sai's name is according to [ext] jump, [ext] tv-tokyo and [ext] studio pierrot http://jump.shueisha.co.jp/hikaru/imgs/chara/n_sai.gif. When I checked it in a good dictionary (edict) the result was a couple of names. Including Fujiwara, but also Fujiwarano

BTW... Is the only way to write stuff in Japanese here that IE-specific thing where you write the unicode-number? (which I don't know how the heck your supposed to use)

HTML character entities for Unicode are not IE-specific. The encoding in normal HTML source looks like &#<character number, in decimal>;, where the character numbers range up to 65,535. (Unicode is consistently 16-bits wide, except with UTF-8 which uses a sort of Huffman-coding scheme to represent common characters - ASCII 0 through 127, actually - in one byte at the expense of using three for some others.) In Wiki source here, you can (now) just include those entities directly. (Italicized comments from Karl Knechtel)




This is a copy of the living page "Japanese name suffix" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.