Japanese style Western names based on their etymology
I recently discovered this note I made in high school while chatting with a friend about Chinese name trends: giving Western people Japanese/Chinese style names based on the etymology of their names:
| Japanese/Chinese | English |
|---|---|
| 舞矛 志胄 | William Shakespeare |
| 内石 贵耀 | Albert Einstein |
| 新村 喜 | Isaac Newton |
| 大智 勇 | Victor Hugo |
| 大牢滩 力 | Ernest Rutherford |
| 富村 雄人 | Carl Gauss |
| 富武郎 孪子 | Thomas Edison |
For example, “William” means “desire helmet” 1, and “Shakespeare” means, well, shaking spears, hence “舞矛 志胄”. It is quite fun to think about the original meanings behind European names.
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From Wikipedia: William is related to the German given name Wilhelm. Both ultimately descend from Proto-Germanic *Wiljahelmaz, with a direct cognate also in the Old Norse name Vilhjalmr and a West Germanic borrowing into Medieval Latin Willelmus. The Proto-Germanic name is a compound of *wiljô “will, wish, desire” and *helmaz “helm, helmet”. ↩