Go beyond ~san and ~chan. Learn 7 common Japanese name enders and 10+ usage notes for each one.
You probably already know that it’s important to add some kind of honorific at the end of a person’s name in Japanese. Something like さん, for example. There are many others, of course, like くん, ちゃん, and さま, each with their own usage.
These name enders, or honorific suffixes, get more interesting and complicated the deeper you dig. We know this because we mined the very depths of Japanese honorific titles and name enders, and found tons that are read, written, or spoken by native Japanese speakers on a regular basis. For example:
殿 (どの): Mr. or Mrs., or Lord, back in feudal Japan.
嬢 (じょう): ~ess, as in “actress” or “seamstress.” Used for all kinds of professions, from elevator operator to prostitute.
夫人 (ふじん): Used for Japan’s First Lady, currently Abe Akie, or 昭恵夫人 in Japanese.
Where did all these honorifics come from? How relevant are they to your everyday Japanese? The answer to the first question is more interesting than we thought it would be. And the answer to the second is important to learn if you want to use the right honorifics in the right situations and not use the ones that went extinct more than a century ago.
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