A Phonetic Analysis of Japanese Names

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This article has two main aims as follows: 1) to investigate the number of syllables or mora of Japanese male and female names and 2) to examine the relationship between genders and the sounds of the last syllables of Japanese names. This study used the data of the 100 most popular Japanese names given to males and females from the search results of a Japanese name ranking website in 2021. Then the data was phonetically analyzed to understand how the number of syllables or mora and phonetic characteristics of Japanese names’ last syllables were related to genders of the owners of the names. The study found a tendency that Japanese names given to males have more syllables or mora than the names given to females. Japanese names given to males with 3 syllables or mora accounted for 70%; while those with 2 syllables or mora made up only 27%. In contrast, Japanese names given to females with 3 syllables or mora accounted for 51%; while those given to females with 2 syllables or mora made up 49%. It was also found that Japanese names with 4 syllables or mora were given exclusively to males. Japanese male names ending with the consonant と[to] were the most prevalent, followed by those ending with the consonant た [tɑ]. For Japanese female names, the names ending with the consonants な [na] และり [ɾʲi] were most common, followed by those ending with consonants い[i]  และ き  [kʲi]. This study shows that last syllables of Japanese names have a correlation with genders. Therefore, it is argued that the genders of the owners of the names can be guessed from the last syllabic pronunciation of the names. This is in line with the hypothesis that the last syllables of Japanese names have a relation with genders.