Katawa Shoujo Forums

So, I would like to write Lilly's name in Japanese. However, my knowledge of the Japanese language (especially written form) is incredibly slim. I can't really write, speak, or understand Japanese. I then thought, "Well surely someone on the internet has written Lilly's name out!". So I look up "Lilly Satou in Japanese", and I get the wikipedia article, from which I get this:



So, I think, that's nice. So if I were to write it out, it would be: 砂藤リリー
So I take that, and plug it into google translate, and I get: Fuji Sand Riri
Now, Riri I can understand as the Japanese version of Lilly, however I'm not sure how I get Fuji Sand. If you translate Akira's name: 佐藤 明



You get: Akira Sato
That makes much more sense to me, so clearly I must be getting something wrong, right? So I broke down Akira's name to each individual er, kanji(?) and combinations:
佐 : Sato
藤 : Wisteria
明 : Ming
佐藤 : Sato
藤明 : Akira Fuji

So, 佐 seems to be Sato, and something in 藤明 seems to be Akira. So, something is up with Lilly's name, so I broke hers down to component parts and combinations as well:
砂 : Sand
藤 : Wisteria (As seen in Akira's name)
リ : Re (Seen twice, and in combination is something different)
ー : Over
砂藤 : Sand Fuji
藤リ : Fuji Resources
リリ : Release
リー : Lee
リリー : Lily

So, seeing as how we get Lily from the last few kanji(?), I assume the problem, if you can call it that, lies with 砂藤, which would be Sand Fuji. Now, I am using google translate, and getting my info from wikipedia, so it isn't exactly the most dependable information. So, after all this, I'm not sure how you write her name in Japanese. I would assume that you could simply swap text with Akira's name, to get :
佐 リリー : Lily Sato

However, I'm not very sure you can do that with Japanese, as swapping symbols seems improper. Also, I assume the above combination is improper, impolite or wrong form. So, what I would like to know is, how do you write her name in Japanese? Is it 砂藤リリー? Or can you write it 佐 リリー? If it is 砂藤リリー, I would like to know why.

If you could answer any of these questions, thanks. Also, sorry for possibly butchering the Japanese language in my search.

it is riri

リリー

i will first explain the ー
it is a drag sound.

that means, if u write it as リリ
it will be pronounce as Lili.

but for Lilly, there is kind of a drag sound at the end.
hence it is more appropriate to use リリー

I just can't understand why it's リリー instead of リーリ. Makes more sense to me to drag the first "i"'s sound.

Palas wrote:I just can't understand why it's リリー instead of リーリ. Makes more sense to me to drag the first "i"'s sound.

Hmm then it will be LeeLi

somewhere along that pronunciation.
It all depends how the author has in mind regarding how the name wants to be pronounced, hence the translated Japanese word.

Though, there are some standard (or common) English names, which have agreed Japanese way of writing. No excuse for any different way of writing.
I cannot remember any of the examples. Maybe like John etc.

Maybe Lilly is one of them.

There's more than one way of writing "Satou" in Japanese. The correct one is 砂藤, according to the Katawa Shoujo wikipedia article.

Also, since names use kanji that also appear in words, Google Translate will not properly translate names. It got "Riri" (リリー) correctly because that's in katakana, a lettering system for foreign loan words. Because "Satou" is written in kanji, Google Translate tried to translate it based on what the characters mean. Since there are multiple ways of pronouncing each kanji, it might not give you the correct pronunciation even if it tried to translate it phonetically.

Couchman wrote: However, I'm not very sure you can do that with Japanese, as swapping symbols seems improper. Also, I assume the above combination is improper, impolite or wrong form. So, what I would like to know is, how do you write her name in Japanese? Is it 砂藤リリー? Or can you write it 佐 リリー? If it is 砂藤リリー, I would like to know why.

If you could answer any of these questions, thanks. Also, sorry for possibly butchering the Japanese language in my search.

As to Satou, i cant really explain it.
Just that they have different Kranji way of writing, even though it can pronounce the same.

Somemore it is a family name.

Oh ya, family name comes first, followed by her name.

So it is 砂藤リリー

Normally, Japanese called each other with their Family name + san/ chan/ kun etc
Is their way of addressing each other.

Only when u are very close friend with another person, then u are allowed to use their names, in this case, Lilly-san.
If u are even closer, or u are her boyfriend, then the "san" would be dropped and just call her Lilly.

As to the ending -san/ chan/ kun, it is just their way of politeness when addressing someone.

Wikipedia article just has an error in Akira's last name. They have the same last name, with the same writing, 砂藤.

There are combinations of kanji that sound the same as each other, but have different meanings and written forms. That's why Japanese introductions have a part where they say what kanji is being used in their name using other words as examples. "Mu" from this word, "Ra" from this word, and "Saki" from this other word make up this person's last name, but the meaning is that-and-that. Affect and effect are often mistakenly interchanged in English because they sound similar though they are still two different words. I can't think of an English name example at the moment. lol

佐藤　リリー would be a more practical name, but the official name seems to be 砂藤　リリー a bit rare but not unheard surname.
both are pronounced the same SATOH LILI-.

looking at each character one by one would help on many occasions but this surname probably does not have a deep meaning to it.
by the way, having a 藤 in your family name hints that you are in lineage of a major samurai clan from ancient times.