IS USING JAPANESE NAMES APPROPRIATION?

* We do not claim to speak for all Japanese people, but please keep this in mind.
* If you are white, you have no right to try and speak over us on this topic.

Names are more than just their sound and spelling.
Japanese given names are the hopes & wishes that parents have for who their child will become. Lots of thought is put into the name that is chosen, such as who the parents want their child to be (in general and to society), as well as how they want their child to be perceived by others - and names are a gift from the parents to their child.

Lots of names in Japan are religiously significant, and can come with restrictions, or are even reserved for certain times/people. Japanese names are closely intertwined with and carry a language, culture, origin, and even a religion at times.

THE ISSUE?
All too often, Japanese names are arbitrarily chosen solely for the aesthetic and because of shallow reasons (like how it sounds or because they took one glance at the meaning and selected it purely based off of a 5 second google search, or just because of some anime character that it is associated with). People use them without a single thought or understanding of the gravity behind the name in the culture they're taking it from, and as a result it becomes valueless when they use it.

Heavy consideration is put into Japanese names, and taking it so thoughtlessly is an insult to our culture as well as the people who carefully created those names with the future of their children in mind. Japanese names should not be used without an understanding, invitation or relationship to the culture.

Alters & introjects aren't an exception to this, as they are also people. Regardless of how strongly you may identify with your source-name, or if you like the name in general, there is the fundamental issue of respect for the culture. Grab-bagging names from random cultures until they lose their meaning is far too common, and is incredibly insulting to the cultures in question. It's unfair that a name that many Japanese people have had to give up in order to live a stable life outside of Japan can be taken from its culture by people who will never understand those same experiences and will unjustly use it for the aesthetic and not out of a genuine care for the culture.

We will absolutely object to having a name that holds a lot of meaning to us be stolen by some non-Japanese people that wish to blithely use without a regard for Japan, because it is offensive to our culture. People should respect cultures that are not their own, and choosing a different name cannot be that hard. Will the entire country of Japan be personally attacked if some random person carelessly uses it? No, but it is not a lot to ask of people to respect our wishes and choose a different name that sounds similar (or has a similar meaning, if that is a factor).

If it is not your culture, you should put more effort into learning how to respect it than if it were.