stupid question about ayu's name
 

I know this question is stupid.....since I'm also her fan :trout :trout :trout :trout :trout :trout :trout :trout but it bugs me alot...is Ayumi the first name and Hamasaki the last name.....or the other way around. Ayumi is the last name and Hamasaki is the first name.....the reasons I ask this is because on her older cds it wrote as HAMASAKI AYUMI..but on sites people often put AYUMI HAMASAKI. Also I see it on some site that japanese don't really have last or first name like other country do.

Hehe...well Ayumi is her first name and Hamasaki is her last name. The reason why you see it written as 'Hamasaki Ayumi' is because in Japanese (and other asian languages) the surname comes before the given name. But because they sometimes write it in English they westernize it and write it as Ayumi Hamasaki. :)

ya
you are correct

It took me a little to figure this out too. I remember when I first got into J-pop I thought Utada Hikaru's first name was Utada. I said something about it to my friend from Japan and she looked at me like I was crazy and could not believe I thought her first name was Utada.

Or was it the other way around? :headache

Hikki's first name is Hikaru. Like what was said above, Japanese put last names first, hence the confusion :)

if you are not sure
say the full name

yea i still get confused over namie amuro .. amuro namie

aiyaaaa lol

I thought so, I got confused because I was thinking of her english release and how she is going by Utada in the US...which is kinda odd since that is technically not her first name. I suppose Hikaru was deemed too hard for Americans to say or something. Who knows.

Namie = First name, Amuro = Surname

Some artists always seems to have surname first
- Utada Hikaru
- Koda Kumi

whilst others have it the other way round :rolleyes

Which ends up being so confusing!!! And then in my mp3's i end up with a chunk of say... Kuraki Mai and then another of Mai Kuraki. Haha! :irked

I believe I heard somewhere that it's more of a "brand" thing. Utada is a bit easier to pronounce than Hikaru (to most english-speaking people who don't normally say Japanese words).

She should go by Hikki then!! :D

She usually goes by 'Kuraki Mai' although there are instances of the other way round, but Mai is her first name.

You just have to be able to learn to tell which ones are Japanese first names...... :yes

hikky sounds too much like something else

heh ^^

True...I suppose. But it's so cute! :P

hikaru is cool! cuz it means *light* haha

but i donno .. maybe the company has done research showing that utada is better *shrugs*

yeah... I remember a post from last year which was about her using Utada instead of her full name. In the long run, I think using just Utada is better, since you might have those who'd make fun of her name (i.e. call her Hickey or something :shakehead )

People are stupid. :grumpy

I'm just waiting till I hear her dismissed as "that Japanese chic" or something.

Wow...that's so off-topic.

What I've noticed is not only Japan but other asian countries do the same thing with not only names but dates.They go from general to specific.For example, Hamasaki=general and Ayumi=specific.I'll use the date on the forgiveness (2003/8/20) poster as another example 2003=general, 8= general/sepcific, and 20=specific.

2003/8/30, that's the order we list the things for a date in Japanese and Chinese when we say it, so I guess that's why it's seen written like that also.

And I also realised this thread has been brought up from 23rd October 2003.

I don't think I've seen Namie's name as Amuro Namie..because Amuro isn't her real name it's a stage name isn't it?

As far as I know Amuro is her real maiden name. While she was married to Masaharu Maruyama (aka SAM) her surname was Maruyama. I guess she changed it back to Amuro after the divorce :shrug

I think the names of singer gets mixeds up because maybe in pretty pony~pretty pony~pretty pony~, they write the last name first before before there first like in chinese :think

You know...OT, but if you're half awake and reading the thread title, it says "Question about Ayu's stupid name."

Haha, that made me laugh!!! :yes

an even stupider question... do ayumi and hamasaki mean anything in english?

This is off topic, but in the same area but...What always bothers me is, do japanese people consider Utada japanese? Because she wanst born in japan was she? So wouldnt her last name be written in Katakana? I alway see it in Kanji, which confuses me =\

oh ic... Ayumi is her first name :)

Yeah I knew Ayumi was her first name, but wow, I always thought Utada was Hikaru Utada's first name because it sounds more feminine than Hikaru! Shows how clueless I've been!!! I saw someone say Hikaru means light... isn't that wrong, Hikari means light if I'm correct.

Hikari = light
Hikaru = to shine

my friend said ayumi hamasaki's real name is "yumi ah", which is korean btw. see, she got if off a forum, where the topic started got to meet ayumi and ask her a question about her background. apparently ayumi is korean and "yumi ah" is her real name.

............

Well... when Ayumi was little girl her first name was "Kurumi" but surely it wasn't "Yumi Ah". Ayumi's mother changed her name after divorce with Ayumi's father and when Ayu have 8 she changed her name on Ayumi (which was very popular female name then).

No... her real name has always been "ayumi hamasaki" since birth. "Kurumi" was a stage named she used when she acted.

Actually she is American. You see, when she was born, her parents were really confused, since she looked Japanese. They were like... 'Uh... you... me', so the doctor wrote that down... 'A-yu-mi'. And then they put her in a box and sent her to Japan.

True story.

:eek

This should be on "Behind the Music" or some show like that! :laugh

"Behind the Music" ~ yeah, why not? This information I found in AYU's biography & FAQ on some french site. I'm not sure on 100% is it true but.... WHO KNOWS???

lol you guys are funny XD

LMAO :laugh

hmm never knew that ayu had so many name changes :think