After I wrote my recent post giving background information on Nerima Ward in
Tokyo, Jack Staik wrote back to me, wondering if Nerima's kanji -- "train"
and "horse" -- were a subtle pun on Ranma's name (which also has horse in
it), meaning "train a horse" (i.e., Ranma). I didn't think so, because
"Nerima" means more like "A horse you train with" or "Where you train with
horses" rather than "training a horse". But there *is* one funny thing about
Ranma's name.
Ranma's family name, "Saotome", is written with three kanji. The first one,
"sa", means early or fast; it's the same as "hayai" (as in ohayou). The
latter two, "otome", mean "maiden". So, you can take Ranma's family name to
mean "instant maiden". :-)
The rest of this message is boring kanji stuff rather that humor, so now is
a good place to stop reading if you don't care...
Their first names aren't quite as funny. "Ranma" has two kanji, "ran"
meaning war/riot/disorder, and "ma" meaning horse. It doesn't quite mean
"wild horse"; that's "akuba" (kanji reading: "bad/evil horse").
Genma is written with "gen" (mysterious/occult) and "ma" (horse).
All of these are real names, by the way, so it's possible there was no
ulterior motive at all (though I think there probably was for "Saotome").
There are apparently people named "Ranma", written exactly that way in
kanji. The kanji used for Genma seem to be different from the more typical
ways it is written.
None of the other names early in the series seem to have any pun in them.
"Akane", "Nabiki", and "Kasumi" are all written in hiragana. "Tendou" has
two kanji, "heaven" and "road" or "way". "Toufuu" is written "east wind"
(and also means "spring wind"). By the way, bean curd is "Toufu", not
"Toufuu"; in Japanese, these wouldn't be considered the same word (vowel
length is very significant), so I doubt that pun was meant.
Takahashi didn't seem to really get into name puns until Ryouga ("good
tooth") shows up. And definitely she was punning when Shampoo and Cologne
showed up. :-)
Another pedantic note from
Deborah Goldsmith