Hey everyone!
@JustAnSideCharacter
(Sorry for the tag, but I need your attention.)

This mostly only gonna catch the attention of SBS fans, but here's the deal.

I really really really need change one of my characters name. If ya don't know, I have a DR OC with the talent, "Ultimate Parkour Specialist." (Some of y'all probably know him.) However, I recently realized (specifically when an irl friend talked to me about it,) that this characters name is a liiiiittle offensive.

Because you see, when I made this character, I just made his name up. It isn't a real name, (to my knowledge,) it's just something that sounded nice, so I used it. But the act of making up a name that is supposed to fit into a different dialect/race is inherently racist. (Like when someone is being racist and they just start making sounds to mimic a language or accent.)

Both of this characters first and last name are instances of this, and I sincerely apologize for that. (Even if I was never approached about here on Wattpad.) If anyone DID see how I named this character, and if it put you off or upset you (but you decided to stay quiet,) I'm so sorry for making you feel uncomfortable or like you couldn't speak up.

So, without farther ado, I've decided to rename him, Subaru Yamasaki!

The name is still sounds similar, but Subaru is a REAL name, and not something randomly put together like the original. I did a ton of research to make sure I had an understanding this time. It also has a cool meaning! The name means "united" in Japanese, but it is also a term used to refer to the Pleiades star formation. The Pleiades is a star cluster part of the Taurus Constellation! In Greek mythology, there are a ton of myths about them and theories that they were/had  real people to represent them.

His new last name is Yamasaki which comes from a common place name, meaning "mountain promontory." If you don't know what a mountain promontory is, it's a big mass of land that over looks a lower mass of lying land or a body of water. Like this:

These are images from Google to give you an idea of it. It's a combination of a high patch of ground, and a low patch of ground. It's a common surname, and occurs mostly in eastern Japan. However, the alternate pronunciation, Yamazaki, is more seen in western Japan. Although it's common, some bearers of this surname are of samurai origin, which I think is cool!

And so, that ends my TedTalk. Here's another look at Subaru before you go:

Subaru is already in an applyfic, (JustAnSideCharacter  's applyfic to be specific, how ya doin, buddy?<3) but I want everyone to know that his official new name is now Subaru Yamasaki! The Ultimate Parkour Specialist!! (Kinda, teheh. . .)

If any of you have written or know anyone who has written anything with Subaru, feel free to go back and edit it to his new name. Thank you very much for your consideration and understanding with my mistake.

I'm again very sorry for letting my ignorance go under the radar for so long. In the future, I will be doing a lot more thinking and real research to understand the depth of my characters names.

Most of my other characters so far, were 100% RESEARCHED names. Subaru's old name was the only one that I pulled outta nowhere, but I did misspell Taito's last name.

Mei: For this, it mainly depends on the Kanji, but the most used in Japanese means "bright, reliant."
Ito: Ito has a few meanings related to string, like "thread, yarn, and string," and even "string," as in the string of a bow and arrow! But the meaning that stuck out to me most is the rendition of, "beloved."

Taito: "to respect, to esteem," is what stuck out to me most in research, and is eventually what made me pick it.
Namiki: As I said before, I misspelled her last name. For the longest time I had it down as "Hamiki." 😭 And I didn't notice for the longest damn time. I have dyslexia, and I'm very very sorry. Her surname however, means "row, or line up," in some kanji's, but some others mean "hope," so pick and choose. By know, I've fixed her application. (Taito is in Flareongirl360 's Applyfic. So, Flare! Please take note of my error!!)

Kupuka: So, Kupuka is a little different. As you probably know, Kupuka isn't Japanese, he's mixed African/mixed islander. Kupuka as a surname is common, and spelled in many different ways over in Zimbabwe, but I and Kupuka both treat the name as a first name instead of a surname. But, I couldn't find any real documented info on its meaning, so the meaning may have been lost at some point. However, the way I found it was by looking far into some Hawaiian word meanings, and I found the Hawaiian translation for "portal," was "puka puka." Fun fact! Before Kupuka was a DR OC, she was a D&D character. The idea was that Kupuka used the cracks in their skin (the tattoos) to store items. The cracks in her body were like portals, so for a while, his name was Puka! But then in a deeper dive, I saw Kupuka the as the last name, and I thought it matched better. So here we are! I will confirm that somewhere in Kupuka's ancestry is definitely some Hawaiian descent.

And so, I believe that's all I had to say. I hope this cleared some stuff up.

Everyone have a safe day, okay? Buh-bye!
-Bori

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