What's that?

For many years, I worked for Toshiba, which meant that I dealt with a lot of Japanese people. One time at dinner, a high level executive suddenly said, "I have a name for you!", and wrote this character on a napkin. Turns out it's the Japanese word, "koma", which is as close to the pronunciation of my last name (Comer) as they can get using their phoneme set.

Of course, I had to know what it meant, but, like many things oriental, that's a little more obscure. Apparently, each 'kanji' character can have several different meanings, depending on context. Of course, taken on as a name, you can choose your meaning, since there is no context.

The left half of the pair is the ideogram for 'horse' (see the four little feet?). The modifier on the right makes it somehow different, but in a (so far) undefinable way. So, either means "stallion", "top" (as in a child's spinning toy, which, I suppose, could be likened to a little horse running about the room), or the "knight" playing piece in Shougi (Chinese Chess). Usually in dictionaries it'll be defined as the Shougi piece, but most Japanese people I ask think of the "top" definition first.

Naturally, I had the character put on my business card, and it was kind of fun watching Japanese people read it. At first, they were confused as to the significance of this character which has no literal meaning in this context. Then they'd suddenly grasp the "joke" that it's the sound, not the meaning, that matches "me".

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