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You have this with almost every language... Can't see what's so special about it?
I just thought of something. If Middleton is middle town, would Kate Middleton if she was Japanese be Kate Nakamura? So Japanese people who have Nakamura as their surnames could change it to Middleton if they immigrate to the UK to anglicize their names. I am wondering if anyone else has ever thought of this.
You have this with almost every language... Can't see what's so special about it?
If she were Japanese there is no way she'd be Kate Nakamura. I don't think many Japanese parents name their daughters "Kate".
One of the students at my school her name is Kato, and her mom asked us to call her Kate at school. (but still, her name is not really Kate)
Speaking as a genealogist, changes like "Kato-->Kate" are actually much more common than direct translation (at least in terms of historical immigration patterns, these days most people keep their surnames).
The most common thing was to simply change the spelling/pronunciation of the name (long/difficult names often get shortened). I know someone whose family moved from Italy to Russia several generations back - his surname sounds Russian to my untrained ear but it's actually a Russianised version of an Italian surname.
Another friend goes by a shortened version of his first name because the full is hard for English speakers to say correctly (in comparison, he gave his son a quite British sounding name although apparently it's one of those works-in-both-countries cases).
The alternative is to simply lose the old name entirely and pick a new one. If you've married into a local family, taking your wife's name is always an option (Lafcadio Hearn, anyone?). For first names, just pick one to use - when I was in high school I thought it ever so cool that my Chinese friends had gotten to pick their own names.
I think there is a reason for this - most people don't think about the meanings of names or think of names in terms of their meanings very often. If you said "Nakamura" most people would think immediately "a person's name" or maybe of a particular Nakamura they know, they wouldn't think of the meaning.
Similarly "Middleton" = a person's name (or "when are they going to stop covering this damn wedding on every channel?"), not "middle town".
(Technically, isn't her surname now Windsor? The meaning that, I believe, is "quick, distract the populace from the fact that the British royal family is actually rather German")
Really? I would expect a change like Kato --> Kate to be extraordinarily rare.
Not specific to Japanese emigrants to English speaking countries, but the tendency has always been for immigrants to the UK to change to something which sounds similar but is easier for the locals to pronounce, rather than attempting to translate. That is if they did/do change their names. Family names tend to change less often and just change less - maybe just a little tweak in spelling to make the way people pronounce it closer to the original.
e.g. I can quite easily find in British records (talking back early 1900s now) cases like 佐藤 being romanised as Satow, which happens to coincide with a surname found in Britain of German origin. In a nice piece of turnabout, Ernest Mason Satow was a British diplomat sent to Japan, where he of course became サトウ.
Another popular option was to pick something that sort of started the same, or at least allowed you to keep the same initials. Or keep your original name on official documentation and pick a new given name to use day to day. I think these days that last is the most common option, at least among the foreign students I know.
I don't think I've ever seen a name translation like the OP's example actually happen in historical records. I have seen plenty of changes which amounted to a very small spelling/pronunciation change. That's all I'm basing these comments on, really.
But changing a surname like "Kato" to a first name like "Kate"?
"Cates", I could understand.
I was thinking more in terms of her surname. I love letting all those Japanese people with Nakamura as their surnames that in English, they would be Middleton, and would bear the same last name as Kate Middleton. I am wondering if there is any way to let the Dutchess of Cambridge know that she would be Nakamura.
Yes, you could could write it on a picture postcard showing some lovely Canadian scene and send it to her via the post. I bet she would be thrilled; people just love getting a nice picture postcard.
What do you think about the difference between village, town or city? Shouldn't Middleton be "Nakamachi"?
I think that one too is another possible name, but Nakamura is more common, and thus strike a better chord together. Imagine Japanese people becoming die hard fans of Kate Middleton!What do you think about the difference between village, town or city? Shouldn't Middleton be "Nakamachi"?
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