regulation

Japan has introduced new rules restricting how names are spelled and pronounced. The new regulations, announced last week, aim to quell a growing practice of Japanese parents giving their babies unconventional names, known as “kira kira”, or glittery, in kanji, one of Japan’s major writing systems.

But why are such names a problem for Japanese authorities? And do the new rules spell disaster for parents who want to break the mould and name their children Nike, the shoe brand, or Pikachu, the little lagomorphic animated character with lightning powers, which is part of the Japanese media franchise Pokemon?

What are kira kira names?

A kira kira name is a non-traditional name where the pronunciation is unusual or does not match the standard or phonetic pronunciation in kanji.

Japan primarily uses three systems of writing: hiragana, katakana and kanji. Kanji employs Chinese characters and is used in writing names. Parents in Japan can choose from among 2,999 kanji characters to name their child – out of these, 2,136 characters are commonly used. Hiragana and katakana can also be used.

Kira kira names, while relatively uncommon, started to grow in popularity in Japan in the 1980s, influenced by pop culture, brands and popular games like Pokemon or characters from the world of Tokyo-based animation house Studio Ghibli.

Parents pick what they want to call their child – say, Pikachu or the fictional character Hello Kitty. Then, they try to piece together kanji characters that sound like the name they picked.

But often, the kanji pronunciation is nowhere near what the name is supposed to sound like.

What’s the problem with kira kira names?

The names are spelled a certain way, but are meant to be pronounced very differently, making it difficult even for Japanese speakers to read the name correctly, causing confusion at places like hospitals and schools.

Take a name written like “今鹿” in kanji characters. Those letters suggest a pronunciation like “imashika”, typically a family name, said John Maher, a linguist at Temple University’s Japan campus who specialises in the sociolinguistics and languages of the country.

However, what the parents might have intended is the given name “Naushika,” inspired by the titular character of Hayao Miyazaki’s 1984 animated Studio Ghibli film, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.

“A primary school teacher taking roll stares at the kanji of the little girl in the front row and scratches her head. ‘Huh? Naushika?! Are you kidding me?’ It’s the name of a Ghibli studio anime film,” Maher told Al Jazeera.

He cited another example — “七音,” which is pronounced as “nanane,” typically a given name. However, it is supposed to be pronounced like “doremi” – either a nod to the early 2000s anime, Ojamajo Doremi, or to a character in the manga series Doraemon.

“It’s causing a public fuss for one basic reason: frustration in everyday life. Schoolteachers cannot figure out how to pronounce their pupils’ names. Bosses cannot figure out their worker names,” said Maher.

Why do people use kira kira names?

The “glittery” names appear to represent an effort to subvert tradition.

A study using data from Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance from 1913 to 2015 revealed that variations in naming patterns were growing over the course of the century.

Still, “until the government’s National Institute for the Japanese Language conducts an objective study, we don’t have the numbers”, Maher said. The National Institute for the Japanese Language (NINJAL) is a Tokyo-based independent research institute for the Japanese language, established in 1948 with the purpose of researching the Japanese language and making recommendations about its correct usage.

Linguist and author Adam Aleksic said he believed the trend represented a pushback against tradition.

“There used to be traditional names and these names are a reaction against those cultural heirlooms,” Aleksic told Al Jazeera.

But he added that this phenomenon was not restricted to Japan. “There are pop culture names everywhere,” Aleksic said, citing the example of how many parents around the world named their children Katniss after the popularity of the dystopian book series, the Hunger Games, and the resulting films.

In Japan, he said, the rise in kira kira names might represent a cultural trend towards individuality, “probably because of Western influence, whereas historically, it [Japan] was more of a collectivist culture”.

What has the Japanese government done?

The recent law was an amendment to a family registry law originally passed on June 2, 2023, Jay Allen, a Tokyo-based journalist for a publication called Unseen Japan, told Al Jazeera.

The revised law, which came into effect on May 26, requires families to register furigana readings of names on the family register. A furigana reading is a smaller script comprising syllabaries in hiragana and katakana to indicate the phonetic reading of kanji names.

Previously, the furigana was not notarised on the family register. Allen explained that the change would allow authorities to check for any mismatches between spelling and pronunciation.

Now, Japanese authorities will mail notifications to households to confirm the phonetic readings of the names of the members. This will be done not only for newborns, but for every household member with existing registered names. While older people with kira kira names will not have to change names, experts said, this exercise would help the government know exactly how all names are supposed to be pronounced.

Those who want to correct the phonetic readings of their names will need to submit corrections within a year of receiving the notification. Parents of newborns may have to explain the pronunciation of their children, and local media have reported that they may be referred to legal bureaus.

The government has not directly banned kira kira names, but the new law seeks to restrict parents from using unorthodox pronunciations of kanji characters. “If they’re using kanji, which most Japanese parents do, then they have to show that the pronunciations they chose somehow relate to common pronunciations for those kanji.”

Allen explained that the new law rejects names that have no relationship to the kanji spelling; and names that are easy to mispronounce.

What’s next?

Aleksic said that he believes that the new law could lead to a decrease in non-standard pronunciations. However, he added that parents might find other ways to make their children’s names unique and interesting, “maybe [using] rare characters, maybe focusing more on katakana”.

“I strongly believe that the desire for individuality wins out in the end and these parents will find other ways to make their [children’s] names unique, and then that will still annoy the old guard.”

Labour prosecutors allege that workers were brought to Brazil illegally and toiled in ‘slavery-like conditions’.

Brazilian labour prosecutors have filed a lawsuit against the Chinese auto manufacturer BYD and two contractors over allegations of illegally trafficking labourers to live and work under conditions “analogous to slavery”.

On Tuesday, the prosecutors, charged with enforcing labour laws, said in a statement that they would seek 257 million reais ($45m) in damages from BYD as well as contractors China JinJiang Construction Brazil and Tecmonta Equipamentos Inteligentes.

They accused the three companies of trafficking Chinese workers to build a BYD plant in Camacari, in the northeastern state of Bahia. There, the prosecutors allege that the companies subjected the workers to “extremely degrading” conditions.

“In December last year, 220 Chinese workers were found to be in conditions analogous to slavery and victims of international human trafficking,” the statement said.

The damages the prosecutors are seeking amount to a penalty of 50,000 reais ($8,867) per violation, multiplied by the number of workers affected, in addition to moral damages.

The lawsuit is the result of a police raid in December 2024, during which authorities say they “rescued” 163 Chinese workers from Jinjiang and 57 from Tecmonta.

The prosecutors say the workers were victims of international human trafficking and were brought to Brazil with visas that did not fit their jobs.

They also allege that conditions at the construction site left the labourers almost totally dependent on their employers, by withholding up to 70 percent of their wages and imposing high contract termination costs. Some of the workers even had their passports taken away, limiting their ability to leave, according to the prosecutors.

The lawsuit also describes meagre living conditions, including some beds without mattresses.

“In one dormitory, only one toilet was identified for use by 31 people, forcing workers to wake up around 4am to wash themselves before starting their workday,” the prosecutors’ statement notes.

Brazil is the largest market for BYD outside China. The Chinese auto giant has said that it is committed to human rights, is cooperating with authorities and will respond to the lawsuit in court.

A spokesman for the company said in December that allegations of poor working conditions were part of an effort to “smear” China and Chinese companies.

But the Brazilian labour prosecutors rejected the notion that their lawsuit was based on anti-Chinese sentiment.

“Our lawsuit is very well-founded, with a substantial amount of evidence provided during the investigation process,” deputy labour prosecutor Fabio Leal said in an interview.

He stated that the workers, who have all returned to China, would receive any payments related to the lawsuit there, with the companies in Brazil responsible for providing proof of payment.

Farmers demonstrate against changes to legislation that would ease restrictions on pesticide and water use in farming.

French farmers have disrupted highway traffic around Paris and rallied in front of parliament to protest against amendments filed by opposition lawmakers to a bill that would loosen environmental regulations on farming.

Members of France’s leading farming union, the FNSEA, parked about 10 tractors outside the National Assembly on Monday to put pressure on MPs, who began debating the legislation in the afternoon.

The legislation, tabled by far-right MP Laurent Duplomb, proposes simplifying approvals for breeding facilities, loosening restrictions around water use to promote irrigation reservoirs and reauthorising a banned neonicotinoid pesticide used in sugar beet cultivation that environmentalists say is harmful to bees.

The proposed law is part of a wider trend in numerous European Union states to unwind environmental legislation as farmers grapple with rising costs and households struggle with the cost-of-living crisis.

More than 150 farmers from the Ile-de-France, Grand Est and Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur regions gathered peacefully in front of the National Assembly, drinking coffee and eating croissants, after blocking the main roads around the capital.

“This bill to lift the constraints on the farming profession is very important to us,” FNSEA Secretary-General Herve Lapie told the AFP news agency.

“What we are asking for is simply to be able to work in a European environment: a single market, a single set of rules. We’ve been fighting for this for 20 years. For once, there’s a bill along these lines. … We don’t have the patience to wait any longer.”

The FNSEA and its allies say the neonicotinoid pesticide acetamiprid, which has been prohibited in France since 2018 due to environmental and health concerns, should be authorised in France like it is across the EU because it is less toxic to wildlife than other neonicotinoids and stops crops from being ravaged by pests.

Environmental campaigners and some unions representing small-scale and organic farmers say the bill benefits the large-scale agriculture industry at the expense of independent operators.

President Emmanuel Macron’s opponents on the political left have proposed multiple amendments that the protesting farmers said threatened the bill.

“We’re asking the lawmakers, our lawmakers, to be serious and vote for it as it stands,” Julien Thierry, a grain farmer from the Yvelines department outside Paris, told The Associated Press news agency, criticising politicians from the Greens and left-wing France Unbowed (LFI).

Ecologists party MP Delphine Batho said the text of the bill is “Trump-inspired” while LFI MP Aurelie Trouve wrote in an article for the French daily Le Monde that it signified “a political capitulation, one that marks an ecological junction”.

FNSEA chief Arnaud Rousseau said protests would continue until Wednesday with farmers from the Centre-Val de Loire and Hauts-de-France regions expected to join their colleagues.

Protests are also expected in Brussels next week, targeting the EU’s environmental regulations and green policies.

Farmers across France and Europe won concessions last year after railing against cheap foreign competition and what they say are unnecessary regulations.

SACRAMENTO — In the largest gathering of 2026 gubernatorial candidates to date, seven Democrats vying to lead California courted labor leaders on Monday, vowing to support pro-union agreements on housing and infrastructure projects, regulation of artificial intelligence, and government funding for university research.

Throughout most of the hourlong event, the hundreds of union members inside the Sacramento hotel ballroom embraced the pro-labor pledges and speeches that dominated the candidates’ remarks, though some boos rose from the crowd when former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa strayed from the other Democrats on stage.

Villaraigosa was the only candidate to raise objections when asked if he would support providing state unemployment benefits to striking workers, saying it would depend on the nature and length of the labor action. Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023 vetoed a bill that would have provided that coverage, saying it would make the state’s unemployment trust fund “vulnerable to insolvency.”

The Monday night event was part of a legislative conference held by the California Federation of Labor Unions and the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, two of the most influential labor organizations in the state capital.

Villaraigosa was joined on stage by former state Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, former Rep. Katie Porter of Irvine, state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and former state Controller Betty Yee. All are running to replace Newsom, who is serving his second and final term as governor.

Throughout most of the event, the candidates were peppered with yes-or-no questions, answering with the wave of a red flag for “no” or green flag for “yes.”

The event was not without its frosty moments, including when the candidates were asked whether, as governor, they would be “pragmatic and stop targeting California’s oil and gas industry in ways that jeopardize union jobs and force us to rely on dirtier imported energy.”

Some of the candidates raised their green flags timidly. California’s Democratic leaders, including Newsom and top state lawmakers, have been major proponents of transitioning to renewable energy and imposing more restrictions on the state’s oil and gas industry.

“We all want a clean environment going forward,” Yee said, “but it cannot be on the backs of workers.”

Villaraigosa, in remarks after the event, said he challenged the idea of jumping into electrification too quickly, which would affect union jobs and increase the cost of utilities and energy across the state.

“Closing down refineries, telling people to get rid of their gas stove and gas water heater is just poppycock,” he said.

Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Labor Federation, praised the Democratic candidates for showing strong support for unionized workers. She’s hopeful that each would be more receptive to some pivotal union concerns than Newsom, such as the regulation of artificial intelligence, a major threat to union jobs, she said.

“When we’re talking about things like regulating AI — we can’t even get a conversation out of Gavin Newsom about any regulation — I think that was, that was a key thing. They all threw up their green flag,” Gonzalez said.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who is weighing a run for governor, declined an invitation to address the conference.

The State Building and Construction Trades Council represents hundreds of thousands of workers in the state, including bricklayers, ironworkers and painters, among many others.

The Labor Federation is a formidable power in California politics and policy, expected to help coordinate the spending of as much as $40 million by unions in next year’s election. The federation is an umbrella group for about 1,300 unions that represent around 2.3 million workers in the public and private sectors.

The organization has backed all of the gubernatorial candidates in various prior races, although it opposed Villaraigosa in the 2005 mayor’s race and supported Newsom over Villaraigosa in the 2018 gubernatorial race.

The latter decision was driven by the arc Villaraigosa has taken from his roots as a union leader to a critic of Los Angeles’ teachers union and supporter of charter schools and reform of teacher-tenure rules.

Times staff writer Phil Willon contributed to this report.