Japanese American Name Generator

Japanese American names are usually read by generation. The Issei who arrived between the 1880s and 1924 kept Japanese given names: Hiroshi, Kiyoshi, Masao, Fumiko, Chiyo, Hisako. Their Nisei children, born in the 1920s and 30s, were almost always given an English first name and a Japanese middle name, so a church roll from 1940 is full of George Takeshi Morita, Mary Sakaguchi and Frank Morishita, plus clipped nicknames like Mas, Tak, Min and Kaz. Sansei born after the war got the names of their era (Gary, Dennis, Janice, Sharon, Glenn), Yonsei got Kevin, Lisa, Brian and Michelle, and today's families often choose names that work in both languages: Kenji, Kai, Naomi, Emi, Mika, Ren, Hana.

Surnames tell a second story. Mainland families are dominated by Tanaka, Nakamura, Yamamoto, Sato, Kobayashi and Yoshida, often in prewar romanizations such as Uyeda, Uyehara and Inouye rather than Ueda or Inoue. Hawaii, where Japanese Americans were a third of the territory, has a distinct mix heavy in Okinawan surnames: Oshiro, Higa, Nakasone, Shimabukuro, Arakaki, Miyashiro, Kaneshiro, Teruya. Hawaii local first names also run their own course (Clyde, Lance, Wayne, Lori, Jodi, Dawn), and Hawaiian given names like Kimo and Malia appear in mixed families. Hyphenated surnames mark the large share of recent marriages outside the community.