Question about my name...

[loki74]

I've been trying to teach myself some Japanese, and there's something I've been trying to figure out--

My name is Sigmund Akira Wong. When writing in Japanese, I prefer just to go by Akira (彰). Would it be appropriate to write 王彰, using the Chinese character for Wong (aka Wa´ng) to represent my last name, or do I have to use Katakana?

thanks!

[AJBryant]

Not if you don't mind that in Japanese your name will be read as "Ou" and not "Wang."

[Shirasagi]

I'm not sure there are hard and fast rules for this, but it seems that if you have a Japanese first name, then the Chinese character for the last name uses the Japanese on-yomi (Chinese reading). So, you'd be Oh Akira, just like Oh Sadaharu, the half-Taiwanese baseball player.

But it's a mixed bag. Historical figures are referred to by the on-yomi of their Chinese characters. In more recent times, many Korean and Chinese athletes and celebrities are referred to by their katakana-ized names.

If you're of mixed Japanese and Chinese heritage, though, I suppose you could do worse than to follow Sadaharu Oh's example...

[Yudan Taiteki]

You can use furigana if you want (katakana, in this case) to show the reading.

[loki74]

Yudan Taiteki wrote:
You can use furigana if you want (katakana, in this case) to show the reading.

ah, okay. I like how that sounds. I've seen that done with first names, but I wasn't sure if it was appropriate to do with a last name. Thanks!