Your name in kanji
Before your name becomes a kanji, there are three doors: the sound, the character, and what that character carries inside. The kanji you just saw went through all three — but I went through them, and I went through them for the name.
I chose them for your name, not for you. Anyone with the same name sees exactly the same ones. Nobody asked what matters in your life, because when I chose them I did not know you were coming.
And I started from the sound. I looked for characters that read like your name, and the meaning is whatever came attached to them. The other way around — starting from what matters to you and looking for the character — is a different job, and it is not the one this page does.
Sometimes not even the sound comes out exact: there are names where none of the versions reads quite the way you say it, because kanji do not carry long vowels or double consonants.
That is as far as I get from here. A character being good and a character being yours are two different things.
Before any kanji is chosen, your name turns into a Japanese sound. But kanji are only read with certain sounds. A sound that katakana writes without trouble may have no kanji at all that reads it.
No kanji reads "fi". So to write Sofía in kanji, the sound first has to move to one the kanji can read: so-fu-i-a, so-hi-a, so-fu-a. Which one you pick changes the kanji you will be able to choose afterwards.
If you want to keep the sound as close as possible, so-fu-i-a. But that adds one character. So-hi-a and so-fu-a are shorter, and other kanji wait there: the one that fits you may be on that side.
This fork isn't mine to choose, not even with all the time in the world. If the sound changes, the kanji that line up after it are different too.
Even once the sound is settled, the character is not. For a single sound, "bu", there are many different kanji.
bu
All of them are correct. But they are characters of completely different lives.
I might choose a character that means a precious stone, and the color of that stone might be a color you do not like.
龍 (dragon), 獅 (lion), 凰 (phoenix). Their meaning is powerful. But maybe that strength is not what you are looking for.
What you like, what you don't, what you've held important in your life — from this page, I don't know.
And even once the character is chosen, it does not end there. One kanji has several meanings. And among the words it appears in, some are good and some are not. Even within "beautiful": fleeting beauty is 露, dazzling beauty is 麗, refined beauty is 雅 — each one a different character.
On this page I write a single meaning per character: the most representative good one, the one that comes across immediately. It is written for anyone with your name to read — not for you to decide to wear it on your skin.
If it is a character that will be with you for life, you should decide with all of it in view, including the meanings that are not written there.
Do not turn a character I chose for your name, without knowing you, into something for life.
Pass all three doors and a name comes out: your name in Japanese. Whether you tattoo it is yours to decide. My work goes as far as putting it in your hands.
If the kanji is for a tattoo, all the more so: if you want it — then I will take it seriously.
Let's talk about your name →Japanese calligraphy 🇯🇵