Here’s a topic I’ve been long overdue on covering as I sometimes do get asked about it and some may find interesting; the origins my online alias “Kurisu Yamato.” At first glance most people just chalk it up as another weird Japanese styled name, probably from some “weeb” kid who’s really into some particular anime or something, much like so many other online identities out there. It’s sometimes used as a point to attack (which, of course, has no bearing on the validity of whatever discussion is happening beyond the name) and of course I expect as much every now and then. The thing is, it is just that — an online alias. An identifier used for me on the internet. Still, one would have to wonder how it came to be the name I choose to go by online and I’ve seen a few assumptions made which are laughably wrong — that it’s from one random recent anime or another, that I “really wish I was Japanese” and chose it, that, because of the “Yamato” portion I have a really big ego, and all kinds of other laughable crap.
None of that is the case, and the real story behind it isn’t quite as exciting, but still one of those cases where everything just came together. Let’s begin.
Move back to the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Yeah, I was big into anime and East-Asian culture on a whole. Still am somewhat on the latter subject, not so much the former. In any case, while hanging out with a friend we got curious about how the Japanese language handles western names – characters in Final Fantasy, for example, will have perfectly normal names written in Katakana to fit in with the writing system of Japan and the rest of the text in the game. This got he and I curious about our own names written in Japanese (recall this is nearly 20 years ago, Google translate and the like weren’t exactly things back then) and so we looked them up.
My first name is Chris and, written in Katakana, that name becomes “クリス” which reads as “Kurisu” and the pronunciation of which can be heard in the Google Translate link provided.
I used other online alias’s at the time, but soon after this I began transitioning to that identity — of being “Kurisu” online. The thing is, that’s a common enough name and alias, so it was often in use on various sites.This meant I needed something to follow it, and that’s where the (sometimes contriverial) Yamato portion comes from. I say contriversial, because that name happens to be incredibly culturally significant to the history of Japan, and some people see my use of it as disrespectful, arrogant, or otherwise negative. My choice of it, however, originates from something mostly unrelated: Starcraft.
I absolutely love the original Starcraft. I absolutely suck at the game, but I enjoy playing it and have incredibly fond memories from high school of playing it at a friends house before I’d go home. In the game there are large “Battlecruiser” units – massive starships with very powerful weaponry – you can build. Their ultimate weapon, and if memory serves the most powerful single attack possible in the game is the “Yamato Cannon” and that is where the Yamato part of my online alias originates. While it’s certain the developers were making a reference to either the anime Space Battleship Yamato or the original Yamato ship from World War 2, that doesn’t change that my choice in the name derives from the weapon as presented in Starcraft.
When playing the game as Terrans, I’m known for holding back and building several battleships and, eventually, sending them all over to an enemy base, firing their Yamato cannons all at once to what amounts to absolute overkill on one target. It’s not a very serious tactic, but we were all just having fun playing, and this was my way of brightening up my day back then. It became a bit of an expected thing when I play the game and I’d think back to this when hunting for a second name to fit with “Kurisu.” It just worked, and so Kurisu Yamato became the full online alias I’d go by. While it would take a few years for me to fully transition to it, after many years of using an “interim” alias by now most any online activities I do in the casual space will use this name.
And that’s really it. Sure, I went into a bit more detail than may be necessary — I could have just said “It’s the Japanese variant of Chris and the Yamato cannot from Starcraft” but where’s the fun in that? It was worth it also to be able to address a few misconceptions about my name choice, so I consider that “2 birds, one stone.”