Anime Names

Popular choice for female anime characters.

Kamiko

Lita

Many emotional, virtuous word names are coming back into style, but Happy feels unlikely to be revived. This could be because it doesn't have a solid history of being popularly used (in comparison to Joy) and because it's such a familiarly used word in day to day life (unlike Valor).
 
It was notably borne by the not-so-happy character Happy Loman in Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman and by a cat in the anime and manga series, Fairy Tail.

Happy

Several artistic Hiroshis make this one of the more plausible Japanese imports. 

Hiroshi

A very popular girls' name in Japan with an unfortunate English pronunciation: picture a toddler with a hurt knee saying "owee."

A zippy and upbeat Japanese name with both a cheerful and hopeful meaning, and one relating to nature, depending on which kanji elements are used. It appears on a character in the game AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES and in the RPG Genshin Impact.

Mizuki

Light, bright unisex name. Hikari is more popular for girls in Japan these days.

Hikari

Lovely Japanese choice that would translate well cross-culturally.

Reika

Roronoa was created for the pirate-themed anime series One Piece. Roronoa is the Japanese pronunciation of l'Ollonais, the name of notable pirate Francois l'Ollonais. The historical pirate was born Jean-David Nau in Les Sables-d'Olonne, France. His adopted surname is derived from his hometown.

Roronoa

Hanabi is the Japanese word for fireworks and is rarely given as a name to babies. The most famous Hanabi is Koko the Gorilla — "birth" name Hanabi-ko, or "fireworks child." Koko, known for her use of "Gorilla Sign Language," was born at the San Francisco Zoo on the 4th of July, hence the meaning of her name.

Hanabi

Notably used for characters in Spirited Away and Naruto.

Haku

An Asian name not widely known in the West.

Megumi

The Japanese word for "weasel" was chosen as the name of Itachi Uchiha, a character in Naruto. In anime, name meanings often relate to a character's story. Weasels are bad luck in Japanese culture and are associated with death. In this case, Itachi killed his entire family besides his brother, so his name's meaning was appropriate.

Itachi

Japanese word for "scarecrow" that is used as a name in Howl's Moving Castle and Naruto.

Kakashi

Despite being etymologically unrelated, Aimi has a similar meaning to the name Amy, "beloved."

Aimi

Natsu

Protagonist of the manga and anime series Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. The kanji used to spell his name give it the meaning of "coal + calm son," which describe his former profession as a coal worker.

Tanjiro

Long before the vogue of using Irish surnames for girls, writer Flannery O'Connor gave this one some visibility. It has a warm (flannelly) feel and the currently popular three-syllable ee-ending sound. 
Mary Flannery O'Connor was an important twentieth century regional writer whose work has been characterized as Southern Gothic, often featuring grotesque characters and concerned with questions of morality.

Flannery

Pronunciation would not be obvious to Americans. 

No - not a creative spelling of Katy. This name, which can be used for boys or girls, means maple tree. Kaede is unusual in Japan although it has been gaining more popularity after it has been used for several anime and manga characters, such as Kaede Akamatsu from Danganronpa.

Kaede

Anime names are fast becoming one of the biggest naming influences in the pop culture sphere. Anime baby names including Jiraiya and Himawari — both of 

fame — are making their debuts on the American charts, and in some cases rising into the Top 1000.

 include Artemis, Ash, Kenji, Luna,  and Raiden. 

 include Nami, Seiji, Kaisen, and Kiyomi.

Anime is the Japanese art of animation, so naturally, most anime names originated in Japan. A prevalent theme in anime is to give characters names with 

meanings that relate to their story arc or personality traits

. This can be achieved with traditional Japanese names or the creation of a new name. Kinoko, the Japanese word for "mushroom" (not a Japanese baby name!) was used as a name for a fungi-loving character in the series 

 including Ayako and Takashi are also featured regularly in anime. Here, our entire collection of anime names.

Anime names for babies including Japanese names from anime and manga (Page 6)