67830
I'm learning how Japanese names work for a story I'm writing and creating
names is one of the most fun things I've done in some time. However, it comes
with a share of frustrations. One for me is that I don't understand why some
kanji are pronounced in a way that is different from both kun-yomi and on-yomi
readings.

For example, let's take the name 一馬 ( _Kazuma_ ). I can't seem to find any
kanji dictionary (with English definitions) that state that the character 一
can be pronounced as _ka._ Most times I've seen the character, it's been
romanized as _ichi_ and I don't understand where _ka_ comes from.

Another example is the birth name of kabuki actor Ichikawa Raizo VIII, 亀崎 章雄 (
_Kamezaki Akio_ ). Neither 章 nor 雄 seem to form the pronunciation _Akio,_ yet
that is how the name is read and spoken. Why is this?

Thank you in advance for answering my question! Have a nice day!
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2019-04-27T14:36:16.233
67824
2019-04-27T18:21:11.380
33860
question
kanji pronunciation names onyomi
Why are some names pronounced differently from their on-yomi and kun-yomi?
There is a third type of reading for Kanji called _nanori_ as was pointed out
in a comment on your answer dictionaries frequently have many of these special
readings though not necessarily all of them.

Here is a resource on nanori and Japanese naming that may help:
<https://imabi.net/nanori.htm> as well as some more examples on how complex it
can be
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_name#Difficulty_of_reading_names>
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-04-27T18:21:11.380
67830
2019-04-27T18:21:11.380
33861
67824
answer