Nanori
Encyclopedia
are kanji
character readings (pronunciations) found almost exclusively in Japanese names.
In the Japanese language
many names are constructed from common kanji characters with standard pronunciations. However, some characters occur only in names, and some standard characters have special pronunciations in names which must be learned separately in each case. For example, the character 希, meaning "hope" or "rare", usually has the pronunciation ki (or sometimes ke or mare). However, as a female name it can be pronounced Nozomi.
In compounds, nanori readings can be used in conjunction with other readings, such as in the name . Here, the special nanori reading of and a standard kun'yomi reading of are combined. Often (as in the previous example), the nanori of a kanji still is related to its general meaning, being an old fashioned way to read the character, but one that has since fallen into disuse.
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
character readings (pronunciations) found almost exclusively in Japanese names.
In the Japanese language
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
many names are constructed from common kanji characters with standard pronunciations. However, some characters occur only in names, and some standard characters have special pronunciations in names which must be learned separately in each case. For example, the character 希, meaning "hope" or "rare", usually has the pronunciation ki (or sometimes ke or mare). However, as a female name it can be pronounced Nozomi.
In compounds, nanori readings can be used in conjunction with other readings, such as in the name . Here, the special nanori reading of and a standard kun'yomi reading of are combined. Often (as in the previous example), the nanori of a kanji still is related to its general meaning, being an old fashioned way to read the character, but one that has since fallen into disuse.