@lavend-ler replied to your post: I speak some Japanese (I major in Japanese studies lol) and here's a little correction from me - his name IS a legit name and with kanji, just as u said it's spelled like 片側 meaning 'one side'. it's not uncommon in Japanese translation to just use katakana for even Japanese names in media. for example Hiro and Tadashi Hamada from Big Hero 6, even if they have traditionally Japanese names, in Japanese translation they are written in katakana (1/2)
and it happens to a lot of characters from Japanese media too. all Pokemon characters in original have names written in katakana. it's a stylistic choice, more than anything else (and Japanese ppl use katakana basically everywhere) (2/2)
Hey! Hope you don’t mind me responding here; I can’t actually reply in notes as this is my sideblog 😭
I haven’t studied Japanese formally by any means. However, I’m aware of the nuances of how katakana is really used. But for the purposes of the post, which I assumed wasn’t going to be read by many people with an understanding of / interest in Japanese, I simplified my explanation. If you think that’s egregiously unfair I’m happy to edit my post!
Additionally, I asked a friend of a friend who actually is from Japan as to whether or not '片側‘ or some variation of ‘Katagawa’ is ever used as a family name. They told me no. You also won’t be able to find anyone with that name by going through Japanese wikipedia. Looking at English records, on the rare occasion I did find ‘Katagawa’ transcribed into English as a family name, every time it was a mistaken translation of ‘Kitagawa.’
