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I know it's a stretch, and I'm pretty sure it's not, but is 名前 related to
name? I always thought it was weird that they were so similar in
pronunciation.
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etymology history
Does the word 名前 have English roots?
It's just a coincidence and an example of a [false
cognate](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_cognate).

The etymology is covered [here](http://gogen-allguide.com/na/namae.html) in
Japanese.

Basically, the term "名" has been around for a pretty long time with the same
meaning as 名前. It's thought that the 前 part is an honorific that was added
some time later. Early uses of the full word 名前 can be seen in use in
relatively modern times. The English term for it seems to be "modern" in the
historical sense, but in Japanese 近世 seems to refer roughly to the Azuchi-
momoyama period through Edo, roughly 1500s to mid 1800s. Not quite sure
exactly when the first recorded use was. It was widely used from the Meiji
period onward.
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It might be a true cognate.

I see responses above that say they aren't close in pronunciation, but the
roots are close. In Old English name was "nama" and linked with similar
sounding words in other languages. 「なまえ」is a similar pronunciation.
<https://www.etymonline.com/word/name>

I've definitely seen other similar cognates while learning Japanese that
appear coincidental and potentially connect to ancient roots, even though the
etymologies tend to document the Chinese character development, rather than
linking to other potential influences.

Consider 青空. 青空 or あおぞら or aozora appears linked through ancient roots to the
English word azureus.
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/青空](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%9D%92%E7%A9%BA)
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/azureus>
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I'd like to add onto ssb's answer, further exploring the etymologies for these
terms.

# 名前【なまえ】

I use Shogakukan's 国語大辞典【こくごだいじてん】 (KDJ) as one of my main sources. This
dictionary includes more etymology (word-origin) information than most
Japanese dictionaries that I've seen.

[Here's the KDJ entry for
名前](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%90%8D%E5%89%8D-22836#E7.B2.BE.E9.81.B8.E7.89.88.20.E6.97.A5.E6.9C.AC.E5.9B.BD.E8.AA.9E.E5.A4.A7.E8.BE.9E.E5.85.B8).
As we can see, the earliest citation is from 1720, with a sense closer to
_"appellation, what something is called, the label put ʻin front of’
something"_. This is slightly different from _"name"_ per se. The actual
_"name"_ sense, in terms of _"a person's or thing's proper name"_ , appears
from 1731.

Both of these citations are early enough that influence from English is
exceedingly unlikely -- the English language had little relevance for Japanese
until [the Perry Expedition of
1853](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Expedition).

That said, Dutch did have some influence on Japanese much earlier, [from
around 1600](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanban_trade#Dutch_trade), and the
Spanish and Portuguese even earlier, [from
1542](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanban_trade#First_contacts). So it still
bears asking if a European language may underlie the Japanese term 名前【なまえ】.

## Derivation of 名前【なまえ】

This is clearly a compound, of 名【な】 _"name"_ + 前【まえ】 _"front"_. The _"name
front"_ translation sounds super weird in English, but we must remember that
word order is different in Japanese. It's worth noticing too that there are
other Japanese compounds that end in 前【まえ】 in reference to something ʻput in
front’, such as 建前【たてまえ】, or 一人前【いちにんまえ】, etc.

The straightforward compound nature, plus the late appearance of this term in
the historical record, presents a strong case against this being at all
related directly to any European word.

But what about 名【な】? Might that be at all related?

# 名【な】

[Here's the KDJ entry for
名](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%90%8D-586865#E7.B2.BE.E9.81.B8.E7.89.88.20.E6.97.A5.E6.9C.AC.E5.9B.BD.E8.AA.9E.E5.A4.A7.E8.BE.9E.E5.85.B8).
We see that the first citation is in the
[_Man'yōshū_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27y%C5%8Dsh%C5%AB), a large
poetry collection finalized around 759 CE, and the first large corpus
(collection of texts) with Japanese written phonetically and grammatically as
Japanese. Other ancient texts like the
[_Kojiki_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kojiki) of 712 or the [_Nihon
Shoki_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihon_Shoki) of 720 are mostly written
in a kind of Classical Chinese, and thus don't provide us with much
information about the ancient Japanese language.

So we know that the word 名【な】 with a sense of _"name for a person or thing"_
has been around unchanged for a _very_ long time.

## Derivation of 名【な】

This same sense of _"name"_ , and mostly the same pronunciation -- albeit with
a longer vowel value, as //naː// -- is reflected as well in the various
Ryūkyūan languages, strongly suggesting that this is a cognate term inherited
from the Proto-Japonic stage of the language family. See also [the Wiktionary
entry for 名](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%90%8D), which includes a few
of the Ryūkyūan terms.

# _"name"_

The English term clearly has a final consonant, and nothing to do with
_"front"_. Where did this come from?

## Derivation of _"name"_

As visible in various dictionaries, the English term traces back to Old
English, back to Proto-Germanic, ultimately back to the reconstructed Proto-
Indo-European (PIE) term _h₁nómn̥_. See, for instance, [the Merriam Webster
entry](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/name#etymology-anchor), or
[the Wiktionary entry](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/name#Etymology_1).

So while English is an unlikely source for Japanese _namae_ , or Japanese _na_
, what about PIE?

# Likelihood of relatedness to English _"name"_?

The Japonic term is consistently realized as _na_ , a single syllable with no
final consonant.

The PIE reconstruction, and pretty much [all the cognates in descendant
languages](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-
European/h%E2%82%81n%C3%B3mn%CC%A5#Descendants), include a closing nasal
consonant //m// as either the final sound in the word, or the close on the
first syllable.

Given the known and reconstructed phonetic rules for Japonic languages, I'm
not aware of any means by which a (mostly polysyllabic) word with a core
syllable ending in //m// would shift to a monosyllable with an open vowel and
no final consonant.

## Conclusion: Highly likely to be wholly unrelated.

It's actually surprisingly easy to find words in any two languages that kinda
sorta sound similar and kinda sorta have similar meanings. If you're
interested in word origins and comparative linguistics, I highly recommend you
read ["How likely are chance resemblances between
languages?"](https://www.zompist.com/chance.htm) The author even lays out a
well-backed-up mathematical model for determining the likelihood of such non-
cognate similarities.

### Addendum

A different poster brought up the possibility that Japanese 青空【あおぞら】 is
somehow related to English _azureus_.

青空【あおぞら】 is clearly a compound, consisting of 青【あお】 _"blue"_ + 空【そら】 _"sky"_.

Meanwhile, _azureus_ is Latin, not English, and traces in turn to Arabic, and
then to Persian. See [the Wiktionary entry for
_azureus_](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/azureus).

The Persian term لاجورد‎ ( _lâjvard_ , “lapis lazuli”) is itself [probably
also a
compound](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AC%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%AF#Persian),
consisting of _lâj_ "blue" + _vard_ "stone".

  * Japanese _ao_ and Persian _lâj_ both mean "blue", but the phonetics certainly don't match up very well.
  * Japanese _sora_ means "sky", while Persian _vard_ means "stone" -- these don't match in either meaning or sound.

If you think you've found a cognate, **dig**. Chances are quite high that the
ancestor terms of the modern "matches" you've found are not actually matches
at all. "What if" can be a fun game, but it won't get you very far.
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Since 名 alone means name, there is no need 前 to be added to form a word to
mean "name". This is true to other countries such as Korea which also uses
Chinese characters.

And 前 means front(or first in certain context),

so 名前 together could literally interpreted as "first name".

this makes me doubt/wonder if the usage of 名前 instead of 名 as a Japanese term
for "name" indeed has something to do with Japanese people's first encounter
with English speaking foreigners hundreds of years ago.
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