ListOfJapaneseNames/Discussion

Japanese Players can be found on http://gobase.org/information/players/?mode=search, set nationality to 'Japan'.

Bob McGuigan: Readers of the Japanese names list here should know that the characters used are for the most part Chinese, not Japanese. Simplified Chinese characters are used which are not part of Japanese. I'm guessing that the list was compiled by someone who was reading a lot of Chinese translations of Japanese books and who wanted to have a reference for players' names found there. For that purpose the list is very useful but for reading Japanese books this list will not be much help.

tapir: Shall we keep the chinese marked as such and add the japanese? Multi-language list for japanese players/other go-related-people? I am ready to prepare a table for all, but I don't know either language so an indication which one is Chinese which one Japanese would be helpful. Overall the kanji given are Chinese right now, aren't they?

Bob McGuigan: It might be useful to have a list with the names in English letters, Japanese characrters, Chinese characters and Korean characters. Such a list would be useful for people who don't read a language but have books of games in that language, say a English speaker who doesn't read Chinese but has a copy of a Chinese translation of a Japanese game collection. They would have to do a name by name search if they have the characters and want the English letter version. Seems like a lot of work for a fairly small group of readers. Maybe not worth it? I came across the present list when Velobici edited it and it appeared on Recent Changes. I noticed that some of the names were in the "wrong" characters and changed them. That caused someone to object because I had used a Japanese character set and the list is in a Chinese character set. As it is now the Chinese character versions of the names are only useful for people reading Chinese books, not Japanese books. The pages for the individual palyers have the Japanese character versions of their names.

valerio: in 2007 I published a ist named "Professionisti Giapponesi (versione di prova)" in simplified and traditional chinese characters (traditional chinese is similar to japanese). You can use this list, if you want.

tchan001 I think if valerio already has a list of Japanese names in simplified and traditional Chinese that the current SL list should be replaced with names in Japanese kanji. The reason we should have the list in Japanese kanji rather than Chinese characters is that it is difficult to use the list with Japanese websites which do not recognize some of the Chinese characters as the name of the Japanese pros. It makes no sense to have a list of Japanese names which does not work well with Japanese websites. For example, when you want to find books by certain Japanese authors, using Chinese characters will not return anything when you search with Amazon.co.jp. I propose we should work on changing the list to reflect the correct Japanese kanji rather Chinese characters.

tapir: adding japanese while keeping chinese letters seems a good idea to me. it should just be clear which is what. (knowing neither language i fear i can't be a big help. marking with jp,sc,tc or something to this end may help. though i can later make a table out of it.) i understand this list as an index for professional players pages (at SL) with an integrated reading help for go books. (Those who know the languages won't use the list to decipher chinese or japanese go books anyway. For the rest this may be helpful.)

tchan001 I am starting to add the Japanese kanji followed by the marking (jp). I will try to verify the kanji by making sure the name appears on Japanese websites. The Japanese kanji will immediately follow the English name and the Chinese versions will be placed after the Japanese kanji. I will be adding the Japanese kanji even if it's the same as the Chinese version so we can see that work has been done on the name.