Kichi

Good fortune, not happiness

Our own listing gives the meaning of Kichi as "happy" or "joyful". That is not what the word says. 吉, read kichi, means good fortune, good luck, auspiciousness — a judgement about how things are going to turn out rather than a description of how somebody feels. The difference is small in English and large in Japanese, and it is exactly the sort of thing a generated meaning gets wrong.

The character is most familiar from omikuji, the fortune slips you draw at shrines and temples. The results are graded, and 大吉 — daikichi, "great good fortune" — is the top of the scale. 吉 on its own is the solid, respectable result below it: not the jackpot, but genuinely good.

The other thing 吉 was used for

Kichi also turns up as an element in personal names, particularly as a suffix. In the Edo period it was common among people below the samurai class, which gives it a slightly different social flavour from the kanji that aristocrats favoured — it is a name-element of merchants and townspeople, wishing the bearer luck rather than nobility.

This is worth knowing because it explains why Kichi feels like a name without quite being one. It is a word that has been used in names for centuries, and it still reads as a component rather than a standalone given name in most contexts.

The homophone that will catch people out

Japanese has a great many words that sound identical and are written differently, and kichi is one of them. 吉 is good fortune. 基地, same sound, means base — as in a military base. 危地 means a dangerous place. Nothing in the spoken word distinguishes them; the writing does all the work.

For a dog this is a non-issue, since nobody is going to write the name down before calling it. It matters only if you plan to explain the name to a Japanese speaker, in which case the character is what you show them.

How it sounds

KEE-chee. Two short syllables with a clean k at the front and no cluster anywhere, and the -i at the end is a short, high vowel rather than the long -ee an English speaker will produce by default. Lengthening it is the natural mistake and it does not change the meaning, only the accent.

As a call sign it is strong. The k gives the ear an edge, both syllables are short enough to say in a hurry, and the shape does not collide with any of the common English pet names. For a small dog, which is the impression the name gives, it fits comfortably.

See also: Hoshi · Sakura · Kenji · Mochi · Minako

Common questions