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The unraveling of unfamiliar JAV actresses process can sometimes be frustrating, what with multiple AKA names and trying to figure out the most correct English spellings (I usually use the excellent English language site
Asian Screens for the definitive spelling, but not always; for example, they like
Maki Houjoh for what most would prefer as
Maki Hojo).
I ran into a page that may be worth a bookmark; not all of the names may have the best English spelling, but you've got loads of actresses handily in one shot, including some of their AKA names as well as the names in Japanese. It may cut down on your research time:
http://www.actionjav.com/models_all.cfm
Also may be helpful in determining, during those times of confusion, the correct order of the name; that is, which part is the Japanese lady's surname, and which part is her Christian name.
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Not to be a pedant,
jugulear, but both of those spellings are technically inaccurate. In Japanese (
kanji) her name is written 北条麻妃, which breaks down in
hiragana as ほうじょうまき or
ho-u-jo-u ma-ki. That means if you're transliterating 100% directly, it's
Maki Houjou or if you use Hepburn Romanization (which I prefer), it's
Maki Hōjō. You'll see it commonly romanized as Maki Hojo because most non-Japanese speakers don't see a difference because the they'd pronounce it the same either way.
Aside from that, I agree that Asianscreens is generally the most useful English JAV resource. They do tend to be very strict in their transliterations, though. Most of the time that's a good thing, but it can be confusing for those unfamiliar with some of the anomalies of Japanese-English transliteration. For example, Asianscreens often translates アリスas Arisu but this name is normally romanized as Alice. But generally, yes, their website is good.
As far as Actionjav, I tend to find them all over the place on accuracy. Also they tend to use older names for performers who changed them over the years. For example,
Rio is still listed as
Tina Yuzuki and they still have
Hotaru Akane as
Anna Aizuki. I do find it to be useful on occasion when I just can't find some bit of info anywhere else. The best thing about that site, however, is how it can be accessed via sneaky cookie tricks - see
this thread - unfortunately the pics are gone but if you msg the
OP he might still have them.
When it comes to research, my primary sources are
http://ja.wikipedia.org/,
www.dmm.co.jp,
http://www.minnano-av.com/, the aforementioned
http://www.asianscreens.com/ and finally the official Studio/Label website that pertains to whichever Title/Performer I'm researching.
And as far as the whole name order issue, it can be assumed that when in Japanese, the "family" name (surname) always comes first, followed by the "personal" (Christian) name. If you aren't working from the original Japanese source, it's hard to say if it was transliterated accurately. For instance, Actionjav lists 優希まこと as Yuuki Makoto which should really be Makoto Yuuki (Yūki) as Makoto is her "personal" name. This can be confusing because Yūki is actually more common as a "personal" name than as a "family" name. A lot of people sometimes do this on purpose (to seem more Japanese) even though it's confusing. The rule of thumb is this, when writing Japanese names in the roman alphabet put them in Western order. For example: Yoko Ono, Ichiro Suzuki and Ken Watanabe. These are all written in the opposite order when using
Kanji/kana but that sounds odd to us because we know those people by their western name order.
Sorry for the linguistic discourse. I just think it's helpful for people to understand the info on these sites so they can properly interpret it - and hopefully not perpetuate some of the common misconceptions about transliterations.
Anyway, hope it was helpful.
-Nick
