Power Pros Forum

Well, I know in China the first name is the family name. Like Cao Ming would have a son named Cao Peng, etc. So 'Cao' could be on the back of the jersey.

But I don't think Japan goes that way. Yah - as a matter of fact: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichiro

You're right about the Chinese names. In China, last name comes first. So George Washington would be Washington George in China.

And as for Ichiro, I read somewhere that using "Ichiro" as his name was a sort of publicity stunt. If I am not mistaken (which I am a lot ) the prefix "Ichi" means "one" or "number one". But since there are many people named Ichiro in Japan, Ichiro Suzuki dropped his last name so he would be unique.

This is what his name means:



Wikipedia has done it again!

Nice job, wiki!

on the following...
Ichiro: actually, he decided to keep "ICHIRO" on the back cus the family name "Suzuki" is to Japan what "Smith" is to America.

East Asian naming customs: domestically, Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean players' names are all listed with the family name first. For all but Chinese, the names of people coming here are reversed to the order we use, with the given name coming first. Thus:
Asia===US
Johjima Kenji===Georgie McKenzie, bka Kenji Johjima
Suzuki Ichiro===Ichiro Suzuki
Darvish Yu===Yu Darvish
Bong Jung-Keun===Jung-Keun Bong (or simply Jung Bong)
Choi Hee-Seop===Hee Seop Choi
Yao Ming===Yao Ming
Yi Jianlian===Yi Jianlian (had to use basketball players, cus the only player on the Chinese WBC team whose name I remember is Ray Chang)
Wang Chien-Ming===Chien-Ming Wang

raise your hands if you thought Yao was the given name.

In general, Asian names are flipped around here to conform to the Western standard, though Yao Ming is an exception. There is a slow movement toward using the native country's custom. NBC's coverage of the Olympics does this. To help clarify which is the family name, it's usually written in all caps.

In China, family names are one syllable and given names are one or two. In Korea, family names are usually one syllable (two is rare) and given names two (one or three are rare). For Chinese and Korean names, sometimes the two-syllable given names are hyphenated or concatenated to make it easier to distinguish it from the family name.

In Japan, the family and given names are usually two to five syllables each, making it harder to tell which is which. One syllable is possible, but not all that common. By the way, Yu Darvish isn't a good example, as Darvish is an abbreviation of his Iranian father's name, Darvishsefad.

Another name pattern, common in Hong Kong, mixes Western and Eastern styles, so that it's American given name, family name, Chinese given names (hypenated). For example, two big actors are Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and Tony Leung Ka-Fai. They are almost always referred to in this way, to avoid the confusion of being called just Tony Leung.

I suppose you won't come across this in baseball or any other sport, but I thought I'd mention it all the same.

think of it this way, I easily get it. I last name in america is the most important. it's the military and law that seperates it. Most of here have common first or even common last name. I've seen ichiro remakes on youtube the japanese spell his name in katakana,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,which is funny because ichiro is clearly japanese.

*hiragana and kanji are written for natural japanese names*
*katakana is used for naming foreigners like me. *I got a video on youtube with my kanji name

I also know this because I took japanese in high school.

Nope the family name is on the jersey all over the world, ichiro is the only athlete with his first name on the back. Players have the last name and some times the whole name in rare occations like Ken wells, or the last name with the given name in front of the family name.

While that is true, for some reason Ichiro is indeed referred to by his name in katakana. My best guess is that because there is difficulty in knowing how to write someone's name in kanji (there are often more than one kanji with the same pronunciation) as well as difficulty in knowing how to pronounce some kanji (there are often more than one pronunciation for the same kanji), that writing Ichiro's name in katakana makes it very clear how to pronounce it as well as making it clear that that is just a phonetic spelling and not how you really write his officially registered name.

I'm thinking this may be the case as Ichiro does not spell his name in kanji the common way, as dishnetkid already mentioned. Also, by spelling his name in katakana, it makes his name easier for younger kids to recognize if they have not learned that kanji yet.

Let's get back on topic shall we

I learned that You can only play one game of chess in an entire day....

Half Day.
I learned that if you cheat on your girlfriend, you get really good at sliding into the second basemen/shortstop to break up a double play.

If you break your neck you only need to go on the DL for a few weeks. Don't worry about it!

Only pitcher that can throw shutouts consistantly is CC Sabathia.

I learned that it's customary to build a ballpark in weird places like an amusement park and a beach.