Department of Asian Studies, Faculty of Arts, Palacký University OlomoucThis website presents research on Japanese names, currently focused on exploring contemporary names in relation to gender.
Our current project investigates a recent phenomenon of non-gender-specific names — its particular manifestations and also its social implications — within a larger historical context and especially in the context of the changes in name selection in the last several decades.
Its main goal is to provide a thorough linguistic description of recently bestowed names that do not indicate the gender of their bearer in their phonological and/or graphic form, and insight into the underlying motivations and perceptions of such names.
Objective 1:
Expression of gender in Japanese given names
The first objective is to examine how gender has been expressed in Japanese given names over time and how it is expressed now, i.e., to identify gender-specific features in current names, and, at the same time, find out common characteristics of the recently popular non-gender-specific names.
Objective 2:
Motivation for the bestowal of non-gender-specific names
The second objective is to gain a better understanding of the motivations for choosing a name which does not indicate gender: what motivates parents to bestow a non-gender-specific name on a girl and what motivates them to bestow it on a boy.
Objective 3:
Perception of non-gender-specific names
The third objective is to find out how non-gender-specific names are perceived by the name bearers and by their peers, and whether there are any differences in the perception of such names when given to boys and when given to girls.
The research is supported by The Czech Science Foundation (GA ČR).