(06-20-2015, 06:30 AM)Yours Truly Wrote: Do Kanehana and/or Yasuhana function as names? How about if you wanted to have a name that involves the words for "princess" and "bird", would Himetori or Torihime work? Aside from those, if anyone has suggestions for other names that invoke concepts like warmth, gentleness, dance/music, gold, or white/paleness. Basically, anything that a traditional Raen of the warrior class might name a doted-on daughter.
Secondly, the surname - does anyone have any ideas for something that roughly translates to "spearman", or what have you? If I can't find anything better I'm thinking of just going with Kamayari, but I'm not fond of how literal it is to have the surname just straight-up be the name of a weapon.
Kanehana/Yasuhana: These are more like surnames - the entirety of the words being written out rather than shortened. Japanese are really fond of shortening everything, especially for aliases and given names.
Japanese names can be very complicated, especially pre-modern names. Almost all of them can be written in a way that conveys a meaning that you isn't heard when it's spoken unless you are very experienced with inflection, and sometimes even the true meaning may only be known when it's written..
Example: The character hana 花 (flower) can be used in the name 朱澄花 (Suzuka), with the last syllable "ka" being written with the character 花's on-yomi reading
This happens because there are two ways 花 can be read, the kun-yomi reading - native Japanese reading, and the on-yomi reading - the chinese reading. Almost all kanji have on-yomi readings except for the ones that were developed exclusively in Japan.
Torihime/Himetori: Unfortunately it's not a good idea to just push two words together to make a name, that's not how Japanese evolved. Torihime and Himetori (I assume you're going for bird princess) are not really any sort of name I've ever heard of or read about, it'd be more a title if anything.
As for a surname that means spearman, you could use the word spear 鎗, as Au Ra Raen/Doman ruling warrior class names do seem to be rather direct. If that doesn't do it for you there's also éŽ—å ´ (Yariba) which literally means spear place, that might read as rather common to a native Japanese, unfortunately my knowledge kind of ends there. I never got around to extensively studying Japanese name etymology.
My best advice if you're worried about being authentic? Mash the random name generator until you find a given name you like, then write it down and mash it again until you find a surname you like, then look up that surname's meaning, if it has something to do with war then you're golden.
