Loaned female first names


Are Japanese first names Erika, Emiri, Marie etc. loaned from gai(koku)jin
languages?




It is indeed quite common to give names which are (partially) intended as
names from Western languages, for example （女）えりか、えみり、まりえ、もにか、にいな or
（男）れお、れおん、ろびん、れい、…

Of course some names lend themselves to this process more than others and it
is not at all uncommon to use _kanji_ to write the name, for example 愛利歌【えりか】
or 玲旺【れお】. The child can nevertheless use the Western equivalent (Erica, Leo,
etc.) internationally. (For many people names like 龍之介 _Ryūnosuke_ would
probably prove much more difficult to remember or pronounce.)

