Is 中本聪 Satoshi Nakamoto?
Have you seen these Chinese characters, 中本聪 somewhere in the crypto space? I see them in crypto articles, posters, on T-shirts everywhere. These characters have been used for describing the famous pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin.
As we all know now Satoshi Nakamoto is a Japanese name. Yet ordinary Japanese speakers who know nothing or little about Bitcoin read the characters 中本聪 as nakamoto + ?! The third character isn’t familiar to Japanese speakers as it’s written in the Simplified Chinese. At the same time Chinese speakers read as ‘zhōng běn cōng’. This is nothing sounds like Nakamoto, Satoshi.
These characters fit in none of the languages that use Chinese characters as Satoshi Nakamoto. So how did this happen? I can only assume that this happened in a crypto community somewhere in the mainland China, by simply taking a common way of writing Satoshi Nakamoto in Japanese during the time Satoshi was gone backstage.
As a matter of fact these characters do not reflect the naming story behind Satoshi Nakamoto. Dr. Craig S Wright has revealed the interesting origin of his pseudonym. I also had a little conversation with him about it on Twitter prior to his article.
Dr. Wright used two Japanese first names in his pseudonym. Nakamoto was used after ‘Nakamoto Tominaga’, a philosopher in the mid Edo era, the 18th Century. And Satoshi is from Pokémon.
Nakamoto is a very rare ‘first name’ in Japan today. Not only the sound is unique as a first name but also the reading the Chinese characters 仲基 as Nakamoto is unusual, especially when you don’t know about the philosopher. I would think just about zero person with the first name Nakamoto exists, while the same sound but written as 中本 being a common ‘last name’ in Japan. Interestingly however 仲基 is a quite common Korean first name even today.*
In Pokémon the boy’s first name, Satoshi (Ash in the English version) does not use Chinese characters. Instead it’s written as サトシ in Katakana which is a set of Chinese characters simplified for the Japanese people back in the 9th century. Katakana are commonly used in Japanese today to describe names and words from foreign languages. Well Satoshi is a Japanese name. I believe the author used Katakana as to make the boy look a non-ordinary character in the comic, or somewhat to look more international. The pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto has also been written as サトシ・ナカモト in Katakana in Japanese. This has certainly helped for some of the communities in Japan to maintain Satoshi Nakamoto as a ‘mysterious’ figure.
For East Asian speakers knowing correct Chinese characters on names is pretty important. They are ‘characters’ so each has a specific meaning. You could even look ‘rude’ if you keep writing your boss’s name or even friend’s name with wrong Chinese characters every time. In this respect and to fit more accurately into the Dr Wright’s naming description of his pseudonym, Nakamoto Satoshi is more adequate as 仲基サトシ when written in Japanese.
So how about in Chinese?
It is normal for the East Asian languages to use the same Chinese characters for the same words and names even though pronounced differently in each language. Conveniently 仲基 is the same in Simplified Chinese characters, pronounced as zhòng jī so hopefully no more ‘mysterious’ 中本 zhōng běn for Nakamoto!
For foreign words and names, Chinese speakers have historically been using Chinese characters whose readings are phonetically close, also meanings are somewhat related or describing the natures of the words well at the same time. Since there is no Chinese character for Satoshi, this method may be applied to find a brilliant way of writing Satoshi in Chinese! I leave this with the Chinese community :)
It’s time to use more adequate characters and letters because Satoshi Nakamoto is no longer ‘mysterious’!
— — — — — — — — — — — —
* 仲基 as a Korean first name is written as ‘Joong-Ki’ in the Korean alphabetical writing. It is quite similar to one of the other ways to read 仲基 in Japanese, which sounds like ‘chuu-ki’. The same name in the same Chinese characters but different pronunciations so spelled differently when described in alphabet. This is just like the name, Michael in English is the same name as Michael in German but they are pronounced differently, and written differently in Asian writings. e.g. English Michael is written as マイケル while German Michael is ミカエル in Japanese. Respectively 마이클 and 미하엘 in Korean, 迈克尔 and 米夏埃尔 in Chinese.
