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Re: Is Takeo a real Japanese name?
in reply to a message by Rene
Thank you. I could not see Takeo anywhere on these pages, but I take your word that it means man, gentleman etc.Perfect for a hero and Takeo is a real hero in the books. I am sure Lian Hearn named him Takeo b/c of the meanings."You sought a flower and found a fruit. You sought a spring and found a sea. You sought a woman and found a soul. You are disappointed."
"It does not become me to make myself smaller than I am." (Edith Södergran 1891-1923)
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The links that I give in my post lead to pages explaining the meanings of single Chinese/Japanese characters. To see what a character means you have to scroll down on these pages until you find a table heading "Definition".The two links go to the two characters that make up the most frequent writing of the name Takeo in kanji that I could find (I saw around 10 others). The two characters individually both stand for meanings like "man", "male", etc, so for the whole combination you get something like "manly man" and thus "hero".But anyway - Japanese names are confusing, aren't they? - Takeo is not at the same time the Japanese common word for hero - that's "joufu" - but "joufu" is also written with these two characters. (So when reading this, as I understand this situation, people must infer from context whether a story about a hero is told or whether a story about Takeo the man is told.)
Rene     www.AboutNames.ch
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