Key:name:ja-Hira
 name:ja-Hira
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A name in Japanese written in Hiragana. 
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| Group: names |
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| Status: de facto |
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The reading of a name in the Japanese language in the hiragana script.
Japanese names often contain kanji which can be read (i.e., pronounced) in multiple ways. For names in particular the number of possible pronunciations can be quite high, and in many cases even native speakers may not be able to correctly deduce the reading of a name. name:ja-Hira=* is one way of providing the reading of the name alongside the canonical spelling in name:ja=*, using the phonetic hiragana syllabary (name:ja-Latn=* is another, complimentary way).
This tag is not required for every name:ja=*. Japanese exonyms (Japanese names for foreign places) are often written exclusively in katakana in name:ja=*, as is customary. For example, Amsterdam is name:ja=アムステルダム. When the the value of name:ja=* contains only katakana, name:ja-Hira=* is not necessary, as its value can be trivially derived from name:ja=* by replacing all katakana with their corresponding hiragana counterparts. It is also superfluous, because the reading of a name written in katakana (or hiragana for that matter) is already unambiguously given. This effectively means that name:ja-Hira=* is used almost exclusively in Japan and neighbouring countries where the Japanese name uses kanji (e.g., China, the Koreas, and Taiwan) and a tag clarifying the reading of the name is useful.
Similarly, when a Japanese name is written only in hiragana (or a mix of hiragana and katakana) no name:ja-Hira=* is needed. For example the railway station name:ja=いわき, requires no name:ja-Hira=いわき. Note that Japanese place names usually do have a kanji suffix such as 市 or 町, so name:ja-Hira=* is provided for those, even if the name without that suffix contains no kanji (e.g., name:ja=いわき市 has name:ja-Hira=いわきし).
In the same vein, because transliterating from hiragana to katagana and back is computationally trivial and lossless, name:ja-Kana=* is not necessary at all, and its use is considered deprecated.
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name:ja=京都name:ja-Hira=きょうとname:ja-Latn=Kyōto
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Maps in Japanese in Hiragana
See also
name:ja=*– Japanese namename:ja-Latn=*– Japanese name in Romaji (transliteration)- Multilingual names#Japan
- Names – about names in general