Recent changes in naming practices in Japan have been poorly received by the public, leading some to doubt parents’
good intentions. However, there is little reason to believe that parents purposefully choose names they believe may harm
their children. To examine parents’ motivations behind their chosen names for their children, this study reports on an
examination of 303 short messages in one Japanese municipality’s newsletter from parents on how they chose their children’s
names. Although many children’s names used kanji（Chinese characters）in ways that made them likely targets for
recent criticism, parents seemed to focus more upon the phonetic forms of names than their orthographic forms when
selecting what to name their children and how to write them. In addition, many of the images associated with the names
which were noted by parents related to the creation of positive ties with others in the community, such as that they chose
the name hoping that the child would be considerate of others. Rather than being completely insensitive to the public/private
spheres, parents instead appear to be conscious of the public sphere when choosing names; however, it can be
hypothesized that they feel that the orthographic form of names is part of the private sphere. If this were the case, it
would explain why parents emphasize that the more public phonetic forms of names are easily accessible by others but
seem less conscious of the potential burden of unusually written names.
価値観として解釈する名前：名前を通して観察する親の希望
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