Japanese Names for Dummies
August 5, 2016 12:06 PM Subscribe
I've recently started a new job in which I work with a lot of people from Japan. I understand that I am supposed to call them "Surname-san" when I talk to them or write them emails. But I don't really understand why, or how this works in general, and I have some specific questions.
For example, if someone's name as written is Emiko Nomura, I know I am to refer to her as Nomura-san. But she signs her emails Emiko Nomura. Is she doing this as an accommodation to working with Americans? Or is how someone refers to herself different from how others refer to her?
If her mother's name is Yumi Nomura, does everyone refer also to her (and the father, siblings, etc.) as Nomura-san? How do family members refer to each other, if they all have the same surname?
Is it ever okay to call someone by their given name? (i.e., is this a thing that's dictated by how intimate your relationship with someone is?)
Any other info you think might help me figure this out is welcome. (I have read the wikipedia page on this and only became more confused. Thanks for any help and apologies for the ignorance. I want to get this right.)
For example, if someone's name as written is Emiko Nomura, I know I am to refer to her as Nomura-san. But she signs her emails Emiko Nomura. Is she doing this as an accommodation to working with Americans? Or is how someone refers to herself different from how others refer to her?
If her mother's name is Yumi Nomura, does everyone refer also to her (and the father, siblings, etc.) as Nomura-san? How do family members refer to each other, if they all have the same surname?
Is it ever okay to call someone by their given name? (i.e., is this a thing that's dictated by how intimate your relationship with someone is?)
Any other info you think might help me figure this out is welcome. (I have read the wikipedia page on this and only became more confused. Thanks for any help and apologies for the ignorance. I want to get this right.)
Totally not an expert here, but based on a modest amount of study: you don't refer to yourself by your own courtesy title, basically. This is common U.S. practice, too: I call a stranger "Ms. Smith," but I don't sign my emails "Ms. Praemunire."
posted by praemunire at 12:22 PM on August 5, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 12:22 PM on August 5, 2016 [5 favorites]
It's an honorific, like saying Mr. Brown even though he signs his emails "Ted".
Usually use first names at home, or "mom". Mom-San would be like mother, maybe if you're about to beg for an advance on your allowance or something. Likewise grandpa who lives with you nights be gramps but the rich one you only see once a year is grandfather. So you're right it's based on intimacy.
It would be weird to refer to yourself as San (like, I am so honourable!) so she's just signing off with her full name.
(I lived in Japan and took Japanese language classes in college.)
posted by jrobin276 at 12:23 PM on August 5, 2016
Usually use first names at home, or "mom". Mom-San would be like mother, maybe if you're about to beg for an advance on your allowance or something. Likewise grandpa who lives with you nights be gramps but the rich one you only see once a year is grandfather. So you're right it's based on intimacy.
It would be weird to refer to yourself as San (like, I am so honourable!) so she's just signing off with her full name.
(I lived in Japan and took Japanese language classes in college.)
posted by jrobin276 at 12:23 PM on August 5, 2016
Response by poster: It would be weird to refer to yourself as San (like, I am so honourable!) so she's just signing off with her full name.
If she was going to only sign off with one name, which would it be? What's the equivalent to me writing
"Thanks,
Molly."
posted by something something at 12:24 PM on August 5, 2016
If she was going to only sign off with one name, which would it be? What's the equivalent to me writing
"Thanks,
Molly."
posted by something something at 12:24 PM on August 5, 2016
Best answer: In a professional environment, it would be unusual to refer to a colleague by their given name. Not unheard of, but unusual. Any given person might prefer to be addressed by their given name in an English context even if it would be weird to address them by it in a Japanese context.
In the workplace, if you had two people with the same surname in the same workplace, they'd figure something out. People are often addressed by their title, sometimes by name+title, sometimes they get nicknames, etc. I worked in an office where there was a whole panoply of -sans and -kuns and -chans (which didn't quite track with nominal rank), but no one was addressed by their given name.
Children address their parents as the Japanese equivalent of Mom and Dad, as you'd expect. Parents call their kids by their given names without -san because that's an honorific, and that's not how the power dynamic in a family works. You will hear -chan, which is a cute diminutive.
You never refer to yourself with an honorific like -san. From what I've seen, people often omit their own title, for that matter.
Wait until someone says "call me Eriko" before you call her Eriko.
posted by adamrice at 12:29 PM on August 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
In the workplace, if you had two people with the same surname in the same workplace, they'd figure something out. People are often addressed by their title, sometimes by name+title, sometimes they get nicknames, etc. I worked in an office where there was a whole panoply of -sans and -kuns and -chans (which didn't quite track with nominal rank), but no one was addressed by their given name.
Children address their parents as the Japanese equivalent of Mom and Dad, as you'd expect. Parents call their kids by their given names without -san because that's an honorific, and that's not how the power dynamic in a family works. You will hear -chan, which is a cute diminutive.
You never refer to yourself with an honorific like -san. From what I've seen, people often omit their own title, for that matter.
Wait until someone says "call me Eriko" before you call her Eriko.
posted by adamrice at 12:29 PM on August 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Thanks, surname-San; until she says "just call me Molly".
The culture is very formal; there is no alternate equivalent to "Thanks Molly" because no one would say that.
posted by jrobin276 at 12:30 PM on August 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
The culture is very formal; there is no alternate equivalent to "Thanks Molly" because no one would say that.
posted by jrobin276 at 12:30 PM on August 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
The Japanese language uses a variety of honorifics to distinguish rank. Sama is the highest and most formal, San is the second, and then there are informal ones you would use with people you are very familiar with or who are your junior. Unless your colleague knows English very well, they most likely will never write just one name, because the Japanese language is very formal in work situations.
posted by momochan at 12:30 PM on August 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by momochan at 12:30 PM on August 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
Just to follow up- verb endings are changed in Japanese depending on who you are speaking with- this is part of what makes Japanese a difficult language, because you are constantly modifying your language depending on who you are speaking with, and you must have knowledge of both your rank and the person with whom you are speaking with rank. Unless you are speaking to someone born in the same year, who you grew up going to school with, very close friends or is family, you will always be higher or lower rank.
posted by momochan at 12:34 PM on August 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by momochan at 12:34 PM on August 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
Is she doing this as an accommodation to working with Americans?
I mean the answer to that has to be at least slightly yes since in Japanese names are ordered . And it sounds like people are signing their emails to non-Japanese with the order as in English (in your example Emiko is clearly a given name and Nomura is a Japanese surname.)
posted by Zalzidrax at 12:49 PM on August 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
I mean the answer to that has to be at least slightly yes since in Japanese names are ordered
posted by Zalzidrax at 12:49 PM on August 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
If you are speaking English with those people, why can you not call them Mr. or Ms. Nomura? I have Japanese colleagues who speak in English or German and still refer to people as XX-san and it just sounds so weird to me, like incomplete code switching. When I speak Japanese, people are XX-san. When I speak German or English and for example tell someone they have to talk to my boss, I'll refer to him as Mr. XX. He will refer to his assistant, who is usually LastName-san for him, as FirstName only when he tells one of the non-Japanese colleagues to go talk to her, although that must be weird for him. (I was surprised he even knows her first name.)
First names are indeed unusual, unless you're a foreigner. People at work all call me Loony-san, because my last name is too difficult for them (which is nonsense, I'm not expecting them to guess the reading, I give them katakana pronunciations) and pretty rude, but they do it do other non-Japanese colleagues as well. Some of them don't even know my last name - and we're a small office! - and one guy even thought Loony was my family name...
Despite that, even the colleagues I am close to (in age as well as after-work activities) never offered me their first names, although one told me I didn't need to use polite language (what momochan explains above) with her. Only one, who I often speak German with, offered me her first name and calls me Loony without -san.
And yes, as others have said, when your colleague writes Emiko Nomura, she does it because she cannot expect that non-Japanese people will correctly address her as Ms. Nomura when she writes her name as Nomura Emiko.
posted by LoonyLovegood at 1:07 PM on August 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
First names are indeed unusual, unless you're a foreigner. People at work all call me Loony-san, because my last name is too difficult for them (which is nonsense, I'm not expecting them to guess the reading, I give them katakana pronunciations) and pretty rude, but they do it do other non-Japanese colleagues as well. Some of them don't even know my last name - and we're a small office! - and one guy even thought Loony was my family name...
Despite that, even the colleagues I am close to (in age as well as after-work activities) never offered me their first names, although one told me I didn't need to use polite language (what momochan explains above) with her. Only one, who I often speak German with, offered me her first name and calls me Loony without -san.
And yes, as others have said, when your colleague writes Emiko Nomura, she does it because she cannot expect that non-Japanese people will correctly address her as Ms. Nomura when she writes her name as Nomura Emiko.
posted by LoonyLovegood at 1:07 PM on August 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
Best answer: Covered pretty well above, my thoughts:
is this a thing that's dictated by how intimate your relationship with someone is?
Absolutely. In a work context, you're basically always going to use either Surname-san or Mr/Mrs Surname (if you're in a Western company writing in English, I'd probably go with Mr/Mrs, but depends on company culture).
My (American) company does a weird thing in the Tokyo office where people use Firstname-san, which many new Japanese employees don't like. Its probably an attempt to replicate our more casual culture in the context of Japan, but I think its kind of strange and wouldn't recommend that unless you see it widely used.
Now, with my friends I use Firstname most often, and with my wife's family I use Firstname, Firstname-chan/-kun (for younger family members), and Firstname-san (for my father in law). But even this depends on family (my wife's family is on the more casual side).
The default should always always be Surname-san, though. If people want you to be more informal they can always say so.
All that said, Japanese don't expect foreigners to know all this and are pretty forgiving. But its always better to do it right :)
(And as a foreigner, I get a mix of Surname-san and Firstname-san. Although my surname is also the name of a popular snack product and associated mascot character in Japan, so in a more casual context I get jokes about that too....)
posted by thefoxgod at 2:11 PM on August 5, 2016
is this a thing that's dictated by how intimate your relationship with someone is?
Absolutely. In a work context, you're basically always going to use either Surname-san or Mr/Mrs Surname (if you're in a Western company writing in English, I'd probably go with Mr/Mrs, but depends on company culture).
My (American) company does a weird thing in the Tokyo office where people use Firstname-san, which many new Japanese employees don't like. Its probably an attempt to replicate our more casual culture in the context of Japan, but I think its kind of strange and wouldn't recommend that unless you see it widely used.
Now, with my friends I use Firstname most often, and with my wife's family I use Firstname, Firstname-chan/-kun (for younger family members), and Firstname-san (for my father in law). But even this depends on family (my wife's family is on the more casual side).
The default should always always be Surname-san, though. If people want you to be more informal they can always say so.
All that said, Japanese don't expect foreigners to know all this and are pretty forgiving. But its always better to do it right :)
(And as a foreigner, I get a mix of Surname-san and Firstname-san. Although my surname is also the name of a popular snack product and associated mascot character in Japan, so in a more casual context I get jokes about that too....)
posted by thefoxgod at 2:11 PM on August 5, 2016
Best answer: Oh, and in cases where ambiguity needs to be resolved, they will also do "Surname Firstname-san". So if you were in an airport or something and they wanted to page Yumi Nomura, they would say "Nomura Yumi-san" (since there are probably a lot of Nomura-sans around).
Side note: Japanese almost never use the pronoun "you" (anata in Japanese). They use the name instead. So in English you might say someone's name and then afterwards use "you", but in Japanese you'll just keep using their name.
posted by thefoxgod at 2:16 PM on August 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
Side note: Japanese almost never use the pronoun "you" (anata in Japanese). They use the name instead. So in English you might say someone's name and then afterwards use "you", but in Japanese you'll just keep using their name.
posted by thefoxgod at 2:16 PM on August 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
Unless you're my terribly rude Japanese colleague, who loves calling people anata. So it is done, but to someone who had Japanese manners and fine nuances drilled into them, it sounds very jarring. The only person I call anata is my fiancé, and even that is rare.
posted by LoonyLovegood at 2:25 PM on August 5, 2016
posted by LoonyLovegood at 2:25 PM on August 5, 2016
There's one big exception here to use of -san. If it is a working environment, a manager can use -kun to refer to subordinates of both sexes. That isn't mandatory but it's very common.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 2:53 PM on August 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 2:53 PM on August 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
Unless you're my terribly rude Japanese colleague, who loves calling people anata.
Or unless it's the term of endearment you use for your husband, which was the case in my Japanese host family and I gather is fairly common.
posted by The Bellman at 3:25 PM on August 5, 2016
Or unless it's the term of endearment you use for your husband, which was the case in my Japanese host family and I gather is fairly common.
posted by The Bellman at 3:25 PM on August 5, 2016
Calling someone "anata" isn't necessarily rude! Neither is calling someone Firstname-san, especially if that person isn't Japanese! In the latter case, it happens because many Westerners prefer to be called by their first names but here calling someone by their first name without an honorific sounds rude to our ears, so we shy polite Japanese hem and haw and end up attaching -san to the first name. At least that's what I can see myself doing, but thefoxgod's observation above from a current company culture context is interesting so I suppose this is all a big It Depends. Fun, huh?
Oh, and actually, I call my husband Firstname-san. He rarely, if ever, calls me by my first name and uses "kimi" a lot, but I've always disliked guys who call women "omae" so it works for us. We've been married for almost 20 years. So again, It Depends.
But you can't go wrong with Lastname-san until you get to know the person better.
posted by misozaki at 4:33 PM on August 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
Oh, and actually, I call my husband Firstname-san. He rarely, if ever, calls me by my first name and uses "kimi" a lot, but I've always disliked guys who call women "omae" so it works for us. We've been married for almost 20 years. So again, It Depends.
But you can't go wrong with Lastname-san until you get to know the person better.
posted by misozaki at 4:33 PM on August 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
If you're corresponding with these folks in English, I'd leave out the -san and call them Ms. or Mr. last name, then adjust according to how they address you. Like, if you're having pretty friendly communiques and they address you by first name, it's ok to do it back I think.
Because some people will change the order in their names to western style, you may have trouble figuring out which one's the last name. Also! Might not be able to tell from first name whether you're taking to a Ms or Mr. This is when you go to the most knowledgeable person around (anybody Japanese?) and ask them.
When in doubt: ask the person what they prefer to be called, and if you like tell them what you'd like to be called for good measure! They'll appreciate your being considerate and you'll know for sure what they want.
posted by sacchan at 6:10 PM on August 5, 2016
Because some people will change the order in their names to western style, you may have trouble figuring out which one's the last name. Also! Might not be able to tell from first name whether you're taking to a Ms or Mr. This is when you go to the most knowledgeable person around (anybody Japanese?) and ask them.
When in doubt: ask the person what they prefer to be called, and if you like tell them what you'd like to be called for good measure! They'll appreciate your being considerate and you'll know for sure what they want.
posted by sacchan at 6:10 PM on August 5, 2016
Best answer: In my experience, Japanese people working in English with English speakers are aware that the honorifics system confuses a lot of us so we're accorded extra foreigner slack. So don't worry too much about this, and you should feel comfortable asking someone how they prefer to be addressed in English.
I had a colleague who, though she went by Surname-san in Japanese, told almost all of her English speaking coworkers to please call her by her first name only, though her English speaking boss still called her Surname-san and she never asked him to change. These things vary by business, formality of communication, and your relationship to the person, and Japanese people know that English speakers can have issue with all that.
The reason Surname-san wanted us to call her by just her transliterated first name was that she knew that the English speaker equivalent of formality between coworkers of horizontally equal rank was to do so, and she wanted us to be comfortable. We all started out calling her Surname-san because we knew the reverse was true for her.
The honorifics system is all about being really clear with our perceived relationships to one another - if we think we're of lower, higher, or equal rank to someone else, or if we think someone else is extra adorable or extra badass or extra annoying. Japanese has special nouns for most relationships between people - there is a word for older sister, younger sister, person who was in charge of me, person who I am in charge of, etc, and those words can be used to refer to other people who are not literally your older or younger sister (for example) but are just *like* an older or younger sister to you. That is how most Japanese speaking people get around the issue you refer to in your question where people with the same surname would get confusing.
The honorific -san is the default and one of the very few ways a person can indicate to another person that your relationship with them is one of mutual respect with no further nuance. It is mostly judgement-free, gender-neutral, and it is what you use for most work relationships. It is as close to the equivalent of just your first name as you're gonna get in Japanese, and unless someone specifically asks you to please call them by just their first name, to do so would be similar to an English speaking person calling a coworker a weirdly intimate nickname. To call them just their surname with no -san is rude too, because it implies that you do not accord them the respect of an honorific and also are not close enough to them to use their first name.
posted by Mizu at 8:22 PM on August 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
I had a colleague who, though she went by Surname-san in Japanese, told almost all of her English speaking coworkers to please call her by her first name only, though her English speaking boss still called her Surname-san and she never asked him to change. These things vary by business, formality of communication, and your relationship to the person, and Japanese people know that English speakers can have issue with all that.
The reason Surname-san wanted us to call her by just her transliterated first name was that she knew that the English speaker equivalent of formality between coworkers of horizontally equal rank was to do so, and she wanted us to be comfortable. We all started out calling her Surname-san because we knew the reverse was true for her.
The honorifics system is all about being really clear with our perceived relationships to one another - if we think we're of lower, higher, or equal rank to someone else, or if we think someone else is extra adorable or extra badass or extra annoying. Japanese has special nouns for most relationships between people - there is a word for older sister, younger sister, person who was in charge of me, person who I am in charge of, etc, and those words can be used to refer to other people who are not literally your older or younger sister (for example) but are just *like* an older or younger sister to you. That is how most Japanese speaking people get around the issue you refer to in your question where people with the same surname would get confusing.
The honorific -san is the default and one of the very few ways a person can indicate to another person that your relationship with them is one of mutual respect with no further nuance. It is mostly judgement-free, gender-neutral, and it is what you use for most work relationships. It is as close to the equivalent of just your first name as you're gonna get in Japanese, and unless someone specifically asks you to please call them by just their first name, to do so would be similar to an English speaking person calling a coworker a weirdly intimate nickname. To call them just their surname with no -san is rude too, because it implies that you do not accord them the respect of an honorific and also are not close enough to them to use their first name.
posted by Mizu at 8:22 PM on August 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
In my (many) dealings with Japanese folks, I've never done the -san honorific in English. If you're communicating in Japanese, by all means, but, if you're using English it seems more appropriate to use Anglophone conventions--Mr., Ms., etc.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 12:06 AM on August 7, 2016
posted by Joseph Gurl at 12:06 AM on August 7, 2016
Response by poster: Thanks, everyone - this is all very interesting.
My company is based in the US but was founded in Tokyo, so I wonder if the historical company culture is why we adhere to the "-san" - it's definitely the norm among my US-based coworkers and I was told straight out that's how I should refer to people in our Japanese office. I'm glad to know that the equivalent in English is Ms/Mr; that's very helpful.
posted by something something at 5:17 AM on August 7, 2016
My company is based in the US but was founded in Tokyo, so I wonder if the historical company culture is why we adhere to the "-san" - it's definitely the norm among my US-based coworkers and I was told straight out that's how I should refer to people in our Japanese office. I'm glad to know that the equivalent in English is Ms/Mr; that's very helpful.
posted by something something at 5:17 AM on August 7, 2016
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This is equivalent to calling someone you don't know personally as Mr. Smith or Mrs. Doe.
posted by INFJ at 12:15 PM on August 5, 2016