Oh otaku people of EC, heed my call! Nah just kidding I want some help with Japanese. I was thinking of maybe taking on (legally) a middle name: Yu/Yū. It is gender neutral and I really like it. However, depending on the kanji, it can be strictly female or male, as I understand it. So, should I then simply take it as ゆう (in Hiragana form) and written as Yū or just Yu in roumaji? Or are there other kanji alternatives or something that is actually gender neutral, idk? ^^ Thanks
Dave. :lol: I've never really thought about that, but, I don't know if there are too many... let me know if you find one (I'll have a look too)
Nao 流、尚 Ren 蓮、怜、鎌 Rei 例、霊、冷、刕 Aki 秋、旭、愛樹 Akira 輝、晃、明、旭 You can also do pretty much anything you want with kanji. People are getting more and more creative with naming. For example a popular name right now is Marine/Marina, as in "sea" and therefore spelt with 'umi' 海. I'd still check those kanji I gave you, there are some that are neutral, but neutral like how "Ashley" is neutral...
There's more. Actually I forgot one of my favourites, Michi 道. A great website is 20000-NAMES.COM: Male Japanese Names, Page 1 of 2--meaning, origin, etymology
I'm pretty sure the other posters have covered everything, but I'm gonna post it anyway Reina/Rei Rei: レイ Reina:レイナ So, basically, Rei for short.
Reina is feminine. It might be gender neutral, but as someone else put it, only in the way "Ashley" is.
Thank you for all the comments! I think I might not have made myself clear enough though, sorry about that; what I meant was, I've basically already decided on "Yu" as a potential middle name. I only wondered, how I should write it in Japanese in that case? Hiragana only? If I want it to be gender neutral, that is. And when I said "are there any other kanji alternatives..." I meant for "Yu" exclusively - like a kanji for "yu" that's actually gender neutral... So yeah, how to write "Yu" gender neutral?