Naming Twins

The names for the twins had to fulfill a lot of conditions. First, as with their first daughter, Miyu, Ikuko and Jeff decided to choose Japanese names. A Japanese first name, combined with Jeff's last name, would better reflect each girl's mixed heritage, and it is more common (and easier) for an American to have an ethnic-sounding first name than it is for a Japanese to have a non-Japanese name (all of the girls have, or will have, dual citizenship). However, when choosing a non-English name, again as with Miyu, Ikuko and Jeff wanted to stick to relatively short names that would be easy to pronounce. And to make their task even more difficult, they wanted to choose names that are linked in some way. On the other hand, Ikuko didn't want Miyu to feel left out (perhaps a little over-sensitive, but that's how mothers think...) That is when she came up with the idea of linking the syllables of all three girls' names in a chain. After much thought, they finally came up with Yuna and Emi (E-MI → MI-YU → YU-NA).

Yuna (pronounced "you-nah") is written in Japanese with the two characters above her picture. The first character, Yu, is the same as the yu in Miyu. It can also be pronounced yasashii, and it means gentle or kind-hearted. The character for na is used almost exclusively for names. Although the dictionary tells us that it refers to an apple-like fruit, it doesn't really have a strong meaning associated with it in the mind of most Japanese. It is probably best known as the Na of Nara, which is a city near Kyoto that served as Japan's capital for much of the eighth century.

Emi (pronounced "eh-mee") is written in Japanese with the two characters above her picture. Jeff suggested the first character, e, which means to laugh or smile, and Ikuko readily agreed in the hopes that Emi would live a life full of much smiling and laughter. The second character, mi, is the same as the Mi in Miyu. The dictionary tells us that it means at long last, or to cross or join two points separated in time or by a great distance. It has an association with spring, since it is used to write the old Japanese name for the month of March, but is otherwise seen mostly in names. It appears frequently in Japanese history and geography.