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| Ken Togame's surname means "Ten Turtles" and the Lions marketed a special cap. |
Every family name / surname / last name has a meaning. Some are more basic than others. Even the Seattle Mariners capitalized on this by marketing Hisashi Iwakuma's name with a bear cap.
However, while Kuma is the correct sound (like a homophone) for bear in Japanese, his surname "Iwakuma 岩隈" means shadow or corner of a rock. The kuma 隈 character is not the same as the bear kuma 熊. That being said, it's not a bad or guilty attempt by the Seattle marketing crew.
After playing with many kanji reading sites and more, we successfully converted all names into English. While some kanji have multiple meanings, we chose what made sense to put out in this piece. Inspired by our Softbank Hawks English equivalent, here is the Lions literal roster of 2017.
To make sure things are not redundant, we set 田 to paddy, 野 to field and 原 to meadow. If some guys have the same family name, we've translated their first name as a bonus. When seeing that kanji, the last name is first, first name is last.
Italicized names are players who are not returning for 2018.
*Could be gone
Pitchers:
Kazuhisa Makita 牧田*: Shepherd paddy
Tatsushi Masuda 増田: More paddies
Tatsuya Oishi 大石: Big stone
Yusei Kikuchi 菊池: Chrysanthemum pond/lake
Kona Takahashi 髙橋 光成: High bridge, Light growing
Shinsaburo Tawata 多和田: Many harmonious paddies (Note: 和 is the same harmony character that all businesses, teams and work places uses in needing to have Wa)
Takuya Toyoda 豊田: Rich paddy
Ryoma Nogami 野上*: Field top
Ken Togame 十亀: Ten turtles
Shunta Nakatsuaka 中塚: Center mound
Shogo Noda 野田: Field paddy
Katsunori Hirai 平井: Flat well
Seiji Kawagoe 川越: River surpass
Ryohei Fujiwara 藤原: Wisteria meadow
Hirotaka Koishi 小石: Small stone (pebble)
Yosuke Okamoto 岡本: Hill base
Toshihiro Iwao 岩尾: Boulder slope
Yasuo Sano 佐野: Assistant field
Tadasuke Minamikawa 南川: South river
Yusuke Tamamura 玉村: Jewel village
Ichiro Tamura 田村: Paddy village
[Makoto] Aiuchi 相内 誠: Inside aspect, Truth (Aiuchi has his first name registered on his jersey)
Tomomi Takahashi 髙橋 朋己: Tall bridge, Companion self
Keisuke Honda 本田: Book field
Shota Takekuma 武隈: Warrior shadow
Kentaro Fukukura 福倉: Lucky warehouse
Tsubasa Kokuba 國場: Country place
Isamu Sato 佐藤: Assistant wisteria
Naoaki Matsumoto 松本: Pine tree base
Koki Fujita 藤田: Wisteria paddy
Tatsuya Imai 今井: Now well (Well as in the noun, not the adverb/adjective)
Chun-Lin Kuo (Kaku) 郭: Enclosure
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Catchers:
Tomoya Mori 森: Forest
Ginjiro Sumitani 炭谷*: Charcoal valley
Masatoshi Okada 岡田: Hill paddy
Tatsuyuki Uemoto 上本: Top origin
Hitoto Komazuki 駒月: Horse moon (Interesting note that 駒 [koma] also refers to the knight piece when playing chess or another board game involving a horse)
Shota Nakata 中田: Center paddy
Komei Fujisawa 藤澤: Wisteria swamp
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Infielders:
Hideto Asamura 浅村: Shallow village
Sosuke Genda 源田: Root paddy (源 [gen] can refer to the origin or root of something)
Hotaka Yamakawa 山川: Mountain river
Takeya Nakamura 中村: Center village
Daichi Mizuguchi 水口: Water mouth
Shogo Kimura 木村 昇吾: Tree village, Rising one's own
Yuji Onizaki 鬼﨑: Demon peninsula
Naoto Watanabe 渡辺: Crossing border
Kyohei Nagae 永江: Long bay
Nien Ting Wu 呉: Giver
Haruka Yamada 山田: Mountain paddy
Kazuki Kaneko 金子 一輝: Gold child, One shine
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Outfielders:
Yuji Kaneko 金子 侑司: Gold child, Assistant director
Shogo Akiyama 秋山: Autumn mountain
Takumi Kuriyama 栗山: Chestnut mountain
Shuta Tonosaki 外崎: Outside cape (cape as in headland, not the cloak)
Yutaro Osaki 大﨑: Big peninsula
Fumikazu Kimura 木村 文紀: Tree village, Sentence chronicles
Masato Kumashiro 熊代: Beat substitute (Fun fact: Shiro is a homophone for the color white (白). Unfortunately the kanji shows he's not a polar bear.)
Shotaro Tashiro 田代: Paddy substitute
Shogo Saito 斉藤: Adjusted wisteria
Ryo Sakata 坂田: Slope paddy
Shohei Suzuki 鈴木: Bell tree
Daisuke Togawa 戸川: Door river
[Aito] Takeda 武田 愛斗: Military paddy, Love Big Dipper (Takeda has his first name registered)
===
Manager:
Hatsuhiko Tsuji 辻: Intersection
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Bonus: Foreigners
Just for gags, we also reverse translated the meaning of all foreign imports since 2015. Here is what their names would look like in kanji. (Kuo and Wu were already included above as they'll be with the team next year.)
Ernesto Mejia メヒア: Kyuseishu [救世主] . Mejia's name means "Messiah" or "Savior" in latin/greek origin.
Brian Schlitter シュリッター: Namerahito [滑人] Schlitter's German ancestry to his name refers to sliding, or sleds. In this case, Namerahito would be "sliding person"
Brian Wolfe ウルフ: Okami [狼]. Wolfe has an has an easy to understand name with the word wolf in German.
Frank Garces ガルセス: Wakaikuma [若熊]. Garces is a derivative of the Spanish name Garcia, which can refer to a young artz bear.
Stephen Fife ファイフ: Fibuokoku [フィブ王国]. Fife's name is of Scottish origin, a derivative of Fib. Fife is a county or kingdom in Scotland today, with Fib being the original name. Fib kingdom would be the most accurate.
Now because Fib can also mean a lie or fake, this can also read as Niseokoku [偽王国] which would mean "False Kingdom".
Alexis Candelario キャンデラリオ: Sosoku [蝋燭]. Candelario's name has Spanish origin referring to candles.
C.C. Lee 李 リ: Plum (read as sumomo or Lee/Ri)
Wade LeBlanc ルブラン: Shiro [白]. LeBlanc, of french origin would mean "the white".
Andy Van Hekken バンヘッケン: Saku [柵]. In Dutch, Van Hekken means "fences"
Anthony Seratelli セラテリ: Teri [照理]. Couldn't find a true definition of Seratelli's name, but he was often called "Terry" テリ in Japan. Using the kanji, 照理 means sunshine reason.
Esmerling Vasquez バスケス: Karasu [烏]. Vasquez is a derivative of Velasquez in Spanish and Portuguese. Velasquez comes from belasco, which means raven or crow. The 烏 is slightly different from the bird kanji 鳥 (tori).
Miguel Mejia ミゲル・メヒア: Kyuseishu, Doyokami [救世主 同様神]. We already mentioned Mejia through Ernesto, but here's an addition with Miguel. Since Miguel is a Spanish cognate of Michael, the name means "like god".
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Miscellaneous:
Seibu 西武: West warrior. The 西 is the kanji for West, often pronounced "Nishi" with it's main reading alone. This can also translate as West arms or military.
Hanshin 阪神: Osaka/Kobe, Slope god. When the train company that owns the Hanshin Tigers came up with their name, it merged characters from the two major markets of Osaka and Kobe. The 阪 is a slope from Osaka 大阪 (Big slope) while the 神 is god, as Kobe 神戸 is read as god's door. SakaKami would be the kun reading, but the On reading becomes "Hanshin"
Hiroshima 広島: Broad island. Hiroshima is on a southwest area of Honshu, Japan's largest island.
Chunichi 中日: Middle of the sun. Easy to remember that 日本 is Nippon or Japan. Nagoya is viewed as the middle of Japan, hence abbreviating to日. Obviously it's not the epicenter when you count all the southern islands, Okinawa and more, but it is the heart of Honshu. Chunichi's newspaper used the On readings like Hanshin when coming up with their name so it doesn't say something like "NakaHi".
Rakuten 楽天: Optimism. When Rakuten came up with their name, it has the combination of comfort 楽 and the sky 天. Interestingly enough, 楽 has music meanings. Also Tohoku 東北 refers to the Northeast, though going literally it is saying east-north.
Yomiuri 読売: Read selling. Yomiuri is the largest media conglomerate in Japan, the NY Times equivalent. It's a selling read and newspaper. Kyojin 巨人 also refers to a large/gigantic person.
Fukuoka 福岡: Fortune Hill. Can also read as Lucky mount.
Hokkaido 北海道: North sea circuit. Hokkaido is the most northern part of Japan.
Tokyo 東京: East capital. At one point in history, Kyoto 京都 (Capital metropolis) was the capital of Japan until 1868.
Yokohama 横浜: Horizontal/Sideways Seacoast. Yokohama's location is south of Tokyo and is a port touching the Pacific Ocean. The anime movie "From up on Poppy Hill" takes place in Yokohama.
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If there's any better translations or suggestions, we're open to editing or adding to this if something needs more accuracy.
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