It's usually possible to translate most given names from one European language into another. Sometimes it's no so clear, as in these examples :
John (English)
Jean (French)
Juan (Spanish)
Joan (Portuguese)
Giovanni, Gianni (Italian)
Jan (German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian)
James, Jamie, Jimmy, Jake, Jack (English)
Jacques (French)
Jaco (Spanish)
William (English)
Guillaume (French)
Wilhelm (German)
Willem (Dutch)
Guiliermo (Italian)
Peter (English, Dutch, German...)
Piet (Dutch)
Pierre (French)
Pietro, Piero (Italian)
Pedro (Spanish)
There is no way to translate them in Japanese. But some names could be translated using the original meaning.
For example, in Japanese the female name "Misao" only has 1 possible kanji and it means "virgin". The European translation would thus be "Virginia", "Virginie", etc. The only problem is that most Japanese names use different kanji for the same sound, so there would be dozens of translations of "Yuuko".
Female names are easier as the "ko" (=child) could just be omitted, so that most of the time 1 kanji is left. I don't think anybody has taken the care to look up the root and compare all Japanese and Western names so far. If we work together on this forum, it will be quicker.
I am waiting your propositons.
This site will help for the roots of names from all around the world, including Japanese : http://www.behindthename.com/
It's interesting to see that "Henry" originally means "home ruler", Frederick means "peaceful ruler", Louis/Ludwing means "famous warrior", Charles/Karl means "man", Edward means "rich guard", Richard means "brave power" or William means "desire protection".
It is certainly possible to find kanji for all this, and hopefully that some of these kanji names will already be used in Japanese.
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