Names

[Aaron Gerow]

The discussion on names and romanizations has been interesting.

Certainly, I think we all agree that if an artist insists on a 
particular name, that in many cases should be respected (though I think 
there are exceptions). If an artist wants to call himself Ignatz 
Ratskiwatski, let him do it. I thus have no problems with Sabu calling 
himself Sabu (though he should be prepared to be occasionally confused 
with the actor by the same name).

The problem, however, is not artists picking their own names, but their 
deciding that their name should be one way in one place and another way 
in another place. Sabu is standard romanization so it doesn't have this 
problem. Artists should know that once they decide to essentially 
create arbitrary rules covering creating multiple names in varying 
situations--rules that they can never count on people knowing--they are 
headed for problems.

My point is that artists should be fully aware of what they are getting 
into when they do that. Some are not and that is a shame. If possible, 
I would like to educate them on this. But it is certainly a complicated 
issue and there may not be one solution.

While I already stated many of the reasons to avoid such names, there 
are certainly exceptions, and Mark Schilling came up with one with 
Jo-san (though that is a rare case). But what do you do when your 
publication prints names in Japanese order? Do you have to do it Iida 
George and Shishido Joe? That just looks bad and can confuse the reader 
over what name order you are using, since these are such Westernized 
names. Perhaps we can say that once you render names in Japanese name 
order, all these Westernized versions should be dropped because, in the 
end, they were made precisely for Westernized name order.

Then there is the big problem of knowing whether the artist has really 
decided on this name. Frankly, many of the aberrant names floating 
around out there are NOT the product of the artist's choice, but of 
ignorance in the sendenbu or on the part of over-eager fans using the 
IMDb. That poses a problem: do you go with this name, thus perpetuating 
a possible mistake, or do you try to confirm it with every single 
artist, which is a colossal task, especially when you get down to third 
AD in the credits list? As an editor, my inclination is simply to go 
with standard romanization, especially if that already exists in other 
reliable sources. One can talk from the luxury of personally knowing 
how a director wants to render a name, but when you are an editor 
preparing full film credits for publication, or making a database, such 
luxury does not exist. In those cases, standard romanization is the 
ONLY sane solution. That is why libraries around the world will only 
use standard romanization. Artists who want an aberrant name should 
know they are facing this problem when they choose it (and, again, most 
don't).

Another issue, mentioned by another post, is pronunciation. Clearly, 
some artists pick aberrant versions because they think their name is 
being mis-pronounced in the standard romanization. Other romanization 
systems exist (such as Koh or Saitoh) in order to hopefully correct 
these problems. I've even seen Japanese TV shows try to confront this 
issue. I certainly sympathize with that problem, but this again is the 
advice I would give. First, romanization systems always retain an 
element of arbitrariness. Especially when you are going from one 
linguistic system to another, you cannot rely on romanization to 
naturally reflect all the sounds in the original. Sometimes, you just 
have to rely on spreading knowledge of the rules or, in rare cases, 
modifying the romanization system. (The system currently used 
throughout much of the world, modified Hepburn, was changed for this 
reason: thus it is now shinbun, not shimbun.) There are still 
complaints: why not render "ra ri ru re ro" as "la li lu le lo," if it 
seems closer? But some of the solutions are in fact no solution. 
Consider Kudo Yuki, who renders her name Youki Kudoh in English. She 
probably was sick of hearing people call her Yucky, so she rendered it 
this way. But I bet she now gets people calling her Yowky. Again, it is 
her choice, but I still wish artists had more knowledge before they 
made these choices.

A final note about colonialism. Jason may have a point that insisting 
that Japanese remain pure to their names can be a kind of asymmetrical 
multiculturalism. There can be a problem of some Westerners imposing a 
purity on Japanese that some do not want. This would certainly be the 
case if a library refused to use TM-Revolution to catalog that singer's 
CDs (though I don't think any library would ever do that). There is 
also the problem of the Japanese side. Markus asked why even 
officialdom seems to be moving to Japanese name order, and I would bet 
it has something to do with revived Japanese nationalism.

But I think it is clear that the long standing penchant in Japan for 
Westernized name order or Westernized names was historically the 
product both of self-colonialization (internalizing the Western gaze) 
and their own colonialist ventures (rendering themselves more Western 
precisely to assume the leadership role in Asia). While the switch to 
Japanese name order or dropping of Westernized names is not 
unambiguous, at least in this respect, I think it is a good thing.

Sorry for the long post.

Aaron Gerow
Assistant Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Director of Undergraduate Studies, Film Studies Program
Yale University
53 Wall Street, Room 316
PO Box 208363
New Haven, CT 06520-8363
USA
Phone: 1-203-432-7082
Fax: 1-203-432-6764
e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu