Hidden Messeges in Anime Characters Names

[siya]

Ok...Sorry, if this alread exsitst..I searched and didn't find it..but yea..anywho

Ok..so I was bored and my friend and I where talking about Death Note when I realized that Light's last name Yagami spelled backwards is Imagay (I'm a gay)..now more and likely this has already been pointed out...causel like...there are others taht have seen it..anywho...What my point is..does anyone else have any anime characters they can find that their first, last, whatever names can spell some kind of messege like that if you spell it backwards or re-arange the letters and what not?

[The Chaos]

Oh yeah it funny there is a fan art about it


and I try to find name of anime characters and i can't find anything

[Vexx]

The main problem with the idea...

... is that the show is in Japanese, written for Japanese, and by Japanese. In Japanese, Ya-ga-mi (やがみ）　spelled backwards is mi-ga-ya. Plus there are a handful of ways to render it in symbolic kanji, such as 山神 though I believe the actual kanji is 夜神 but don't quote me on that. "written backwards" doesn't even *mean* anything in kanji.

Yagami is not an uncommon japanese name either, usually meaning Eight Gods (depending on which kanji are chosen to represent it).

[Risaa]

This thread made me *SNORK* (in a good way)

Other than themes for names (in Chicchana Yukitsukai Sugar, the fairy names are all some type of spice) and clever ties to the actual character personality (Sailor Mercury, the water senshi, having the name Mizuno), I can't think of anything quite to the extent of Yagami. I'd also have trouble getting myself to rearrange the letters as we would in English because of how the Japanese language works, as was pointed out in the post above mine. I'd be more tempted to rearrange the kana, and frankly I'm not good enough at Japanese yet to identify clever, corny little quirks with names in that way.

One interesting name I can mention is Mai from Mai-HiME. The kanji used in Mai-HiME for "Mai" means "dance", and when the girls fight, they're described as dancing. It just seems very fitting a name for the main character.

[Hotaru Suzume]

Japanese people quite simply don't speak English, and their language works differently, so many a backwards name is merely concieved out of the English language (or any other language except the original (Japanese) for that matter), and holds no real relevance.

Originally Posted by Risaa

One interesting name I can mention is Mai from Mai-HiME. The kanji used in Mai-HiME for "Mai" means "dance", and when the girls fight, they're described as dancing. It just seems very fitting a name for the main character.

A large number of characters appear to have profoundly "fitting" names, I think it's possibly to emphasise or make apparent one of their key characteristics or something, lol.

The only anime character I know of that really does have a meaning to his name in this way is Alucard, which is Dracula backwards. Though I assume it's most likely just a derivative rather than something with hidden meaning.

Also, read what Vexx posted.

[Tri-ring]

There are some hidden meaning in Character names if you know the language like Masion Ikkoku;

The occupant's name of the boarding house were;
Room one was Ichinose (One)
Room two was Nikaido (Movie original character) (two)
Room three was Mitsukoshi (anime original character) (three)
Room four was Yotsuya (Four)
Room five wasGodai (five)
Room six was Roppongi (six)

Other names were;
Mitaka (three), Nanase (seven), Yagami (eight) and, Kujo (nine)

Which alot of you probably know already but one that most of you miss is Otonashi meaning no sound which implies to zero as manager of the building.

[Oppius]

Magikano also have good hidden message in its characters' names:

Yoshikawa Haruo ("Haru" means spring in Japanese)
Yoshikawa Maika ("Ka" means summer in Japanese)
Yoshikawa Chiaki ("Aki" means autumn in Japanese)
Yoshikawa Fuyuno ("Fuyu" means winter in Japanese)

That's means all family members are 'related' by seasons.

[Kyuusai]

There are a lot of hidden meanings found in anime and manga character names, from puns to the more profound. The Japanese language's syllabic language structure, wide re-use of syllables, and ideographic writing system all combine to make a marvelous linguistic playground for adding layers of meaning or puns.

On the sillier end, nearly all of the characters in Dragonball have ridiculous names with obvious meanings, generally related to food. On the more interesting end, nearly all of Gurren Lagann's characters have names with meanings that represent their character in a meaningful way. Somewhere in between is every character in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei.

[Kaioshin Sama]

I always found Gundam Wings character number names to be amusing

Wing Zero (obvious)
Heero Yuy (The One And Only)
Lady Une (one)
Odin Lowe (one)
Solo (one)
Duo Maxwell (two)
Trowa/Triton Barton/Bloom (three)
Quatre Winner (four)
Chang Wufei (five)
Sanq Kingdom (five)
Zechs Merquise (six)
General Septem (seven)
Inspector Acht(eight)
Lt. Col. Otto (eight)
Lucrezia Noin (nine)
Dekim Barton (ten)
Chief Engineer Tsubarov (twelve)
Treize Khushrenada (thirteen)
Colonel Sedici (sixteen)
Operative Trant (thirty)
Marshall Noventa (ninty)
Duke Dermail (thousand)
Peacemillion (obvious)
Milliardo Peacecraft(billion)

I'm sure if you look there are also a few more.

Sailor Moon also had some:

Usagi Tsukino (Bunny of The Moon)
Ami Mizuno (Friend of Water)
Rei Hino (Spirit Of Fire)
Makoto Kino (Wisdom Of The Forest)
Minako Aino (Beauty Of Love)
Haruka Tenoh (King Of The Heavens)
Michiru Kaioh (King Of The Sea)
Setsuna Meioh (Dark Ruler Of The Moment)
Hotaru Tomoe (Blossoming Firefly)
Chiba Mamoru (Guardian Of Earth)

[Risaa]

Originally Posted by Kyuusai

On the sillier end, nearly all of the characters in Dragonball have ridiculous names with obvious meanings, generally related to food. On the more interesting end, nearly all of Gurren Lagann's characters have names with meanings that represent their character in a meaningful way. Somewhere in between is every character in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei.

Along those lines, some of Jungle wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu's characters had odd names having to do with the weather - Hale (fair weather), Weda (weather), Ame (rain) etc..

[panzerfan]

School days enjoy that message, and it's not so subtle.

伊藤 誠 Ito Makoto : Loyalty
桂 言葉 Katsura Kotonoha: Message
西園寺 世界 Saionji Sekai : World
清浦 刹那 Kiyoura Setsuna : Moment
桂 心 Katsura Kokoro : Heart

[Terrestrial Dream]

Spoiler for Fafner:

In the show many of the character died as how their name was like.

Originally Posted by MAHQ

The director sure likes his poetic misfortunes. Shouko’s name means to fly to the sky, which she did when she died. When Sakura ‘died’ she was surrounded by Cherry blossoms and this time, when Mamoru died, he was protecting everyone, which is what his name means.

[Trail]

Originally Posted by Amex_Yohko

Yoshikawa Maika ("Ka" means summer in Japanese)

Hmm I always thought natsu is summer...

[2H-Dragon]

Originally Posted by panzerfan

School days enjoy that message, and it's not so subtle.

伊藤 誠 Ito Makoto : Loyalty

This made lol.

Yeah you guys should check Pokemon. =o

Minami-ke also has the season in them.

[aohige]

Originally Posted by Trail

Hmm I always thought natsu is summer...

Most kanji has "on-reading" and "kun-reading" pronounciation.
On-reading is derivative of the original Chinese pronounciation, whereas kun-reading is based on native Japanese words.
In general, when a kanji is used as composition of a word and not independent on its own, the on-reading reading is used.

the kanji "夏" is "natsu" in kun-reading, and means summer. However, the on-reading of the kanji is "ka" or "ge".
For example, 夏季 is read "kaki", and means summer season.

As for the subject of this thread, we should mention Gurren Lagann as a prime example... afterall, every single character in that show have hidden meaning. Heck, they even made up a fictional voice actor and hid meaning in the name.

[siya]

Well, there is also Sasuke xD bassiacaly another thing for Yaoi

[M.Marangio]

In "Sayonara, Zetsubō Sensei" basically all characters have names with hidden meanings. For example, the name of the teacher is Itoshiki Nozomu (糸色 望), which becomes zetsubō (絶望), i.e. despair, if the name is written horizontally.

In "Sumomomo Momomo" all main characters have names with kanji of animals of the Chinese Zodiac. For example, Inuzuka Kōshi (犬塚孝士) contains inu (犬), dog, Kuzuryū Momoko (九頭竜もも子) contains ryū (竜), dragon, and so on.

In "The Hakkenden" all eight dog warriors have family names that starts with the inu (犬) kanji and given names with the kanji of a virtue.

[LunaWolf]

The authors planned the name to have special meanings which is according to the characters... The Yagami-ImAGay made me laugh too XD! I never noticed.