So I got rather bored today. So I took 1000 names from JAVBUS's list of idols. Basically it's listed by search popularity, starting with a mix of top current vets and recently retired idols. So... I took this list of 1000 names and check what's in their names.
Way back, Japanese names were all kanji. Then I asked a female Japanese friend what's the meaning of her given name, which is in hiragana. And she said it has no meaning. It seems younger Japanese generation (especially girls) may get more "down-to-earth" hiragana name without meaning, but boys still tend to get kanji names with male or at least upward sounding meaning.
Anyway porn names tend to get more colorful than real name so I was wondering if there's a trend moving to more hiragana, more katakana and even romanji. I have debut date and birthdays of some of them so it's even possible to analyze the trend with time. But for now, just pure name analysis.
To start with the easy ones:
All romanji names: only 13 out of 1000, a surprisingly small number. Considering Julia, Rion, Aika, Hitomi, Naomi, Erika are current or very recently retired. That's 6 already. So I think all-romanji names are more recent trend and also well-correlated with commercial success.
All katakana names: even more surprising, there are only 3 out of 1000: ティア (Tia), メイメイ (Meimei) and Clara Leroy ルロア・クララ. Meimei is Taiwanese, and quite anti-intuitively Japanese have taken to render Chinese names in Katakana, it's very recent. I have my pet theory why they do that, but it's too political for here.
Pure hiragana names: 19 our of 1000. The biggest names are Meguri めぐり and Tsubomi つぼみ. But that's it, the remaining names are journeymen.
Mix of katakana and kanji: only 65 names, some are very famous: Kirara Asuka, Kurea (Claire) Hasumi. All of them with kanji family name and katakana given name. Some are Western sounding names like Claire, some are Japanese sounding names that normally would be rendered in hiragana. But kanakana gives her more flavor.
Mix of hiragana and kanji: 528 names, the absolute majority.
All kanji names: 377 names. Some are huge names like 三上悠亜 Yua Mikami, 波多野結衣 Yui Hatano... My pet theory is that the further you go back in history (like 2000s) you would find all kanji names to be dominant.
Way back, Japanese names were all kanji. Then I asked a female Japanese friend what's the meaning of her given name, which is in hiragana. And she said it has no meaning. It seems younger Japanese generation (especially girls) may get more "down-to-earth" hiragana name without meaning, but boys still tend to get kanji names with male or at least upward sounding meaning.
Anyway porn names tend to get more colorful than real name so I was wondering if there's a trend moving to more hiragana, more katakana and even romanji. I have debut date and birthdays of some of them so it's even possible to analyze the trend with time. But for now, just pure name analysis.
To start with the easy ones:
All romanji names: only 13 out of 1000, a surprisingly small number. Considering Julia, Rion, Aika, Hitomi, Naomi, Erika are current or very recently retired. That's 6 already. So I think all-romanji names are more recent trend and also well-correlated with commercial success.
All katakana names: even more surprising, there are only 3 out of 1000: ティア (Tia), メイメイ (Meimei) and Clara Leroy ルロア・クララ. Meimei is Taiwanese, and quite anti-intuitively Japanese have taken to render Chinese names in Katakana, it's very recent. I have my pet theory why they do that, but it's too political for here.
Pure hiragana names: 19 our of 1000. The biggest names are Meguri めぐり and Tsubomi つぼみ. But that's it, the remaining names are journeymen.
Mix of katakana and kanji: only 65 names, some are very famous: Kirara Asuka, Kurea (Claire) Hasumi. All of them with kanji family name and katakana given name. Some are Western sounding names like Claire, some are Japanese sounding names that normally would be rendered in hiragana. But kanakana gives her more flavor.
Mix of hiragana and kanji: 528 names, the absolute majority.
All kanji names: 377 names. Some are huge names like 三上悠亜 Yua Mikami, 波多野結衣 Yui Hatano... My pet theory is that the further you go back in history (like 2000s) you would find all kanji names to be dominant.