The change is designed to halt the use of kirakira (shiny or glittery) names that have proliferated among parents hoping to add a creative flourish
Parents in Japan will no longer have free rein over the names they give their children, after the introduction this week of new rules on the pronunciation of kanji characters.
The change is designed to halt the use of kirakira (shiny or glittery) names that have proliferated among parents hoping to add a creative flourish to their children’s names – creating administrative headaches for local authorities and, in some cases, inviting derision from classmates.
While the revisions to the family registry act do not ban kanji – Chinese-based characters in written Japanese – parents are required to inform local authorities of their phonetic reading, in an attempt to banish unusual or controversial pronunciations.
As an aside, Ashleigh is an abomination regardless of how it’s spelled, derived from a toponymic surname that later became a boy’s given name. Parents who give their daughters such names should be put in the stocks and made to eat gruel made from spelt cooked in day-old hotdog water.
What if my daughter is actually a field with ash trees though?
Bro how bad did Ashleigh hurt you?
…what?