Does Ōtōko (桜桃子) exist as given name?
Hi !!!I found this name in a book so I looked for the kanji. It seems to mean "cherry child" similar to names like Momoko (peach child) or Umeko (plum child). Just for saying the character was a concubine in the Edo period at the shogun court so this was not her "childhood name" but her "adult name" in that situation, where a lot of women used to have this kind of names.But I can't find any current bearer.. as I said Sakurako, Momoko, Umeko are still used...why not this one?Personal Name Lists https://www.behindthename.com/pnl/125456

This message was edited 10/12/2019, 2:54 PM

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May I ask the title of the book that you are referring to?The fact that you said that you had to look up the kanji suggests to me that the name is transcribed in the Latin alphabet and if it is transcribed as 'Otoko', then it does leave a bit of room for interpretation as to how the name may have been written.I used four main sources to find out whether 桜桃子/櫻桃子 is used:
http://www.douseidoumei.net/ (taken from telephone book data, sort of overall population)
http://www.namaejiten.com/ (Heisei period data)
FamilySearch
Google (by searching "[insert kanji here] [insert kana here] pdf ふりがな]" - kanji or kana can be searched on its own")None of these main sources are able to find 桜桃子/櫻桃子 at all with the reading Ōtōko (the first two sources don't even have 桜桃子/櫻桃子 listed), hence why I removed the entry.
The only example of 桜桃子/櫻桃子 is here (in Japanese):
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%88%90%E7%80%AC%E6%AB%BB%E6%A1%83%E5%AD%90
The given name is listed as Ōtōshi/Outoushi (おうとうし) and that name was not even his real name, as the article notes that 冨造 (I can only guess, it's Tomizō) was his real given name.On Jisho, there are two other readings for 桜桃子/櫻桃子, Otoko and Yuzurako, and these two readings would hypothetically be more likely choices than Ōtōko/Outouko.

This message was edited 10/12/2019, 4:29 PM

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Hi m4yb3_daijirou !!!You were very helpful, the explaination was great!!I'm trying to edit Japanese names as you've done for years so I'm glad that you tell me where I can be better.Yes, in the book the name was Otoko without the ō so I looked for the kanji for Otoko as well as you can see among the submitted names.The book is: 'The last concubine' by author Lesley Downer.
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