What's up with males named Miyuki?


Edit 1: It's like [A Boy Named
Sue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Boy_Named_Sue) or something.

Edit 2: Should I split this question into 2 posts so I can accept both
answers? Huhuhu. I think I'll just accept 1 and bounty the other. It's a
punishment for myself for not splitting up the post.

* * *

I notice in [Kaguya-sama](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaguya-
sama:_Love_Is_War), the name of the male protagonist is
'[Miyuki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyuki)', namely [白銀 御行, Shirogane
Miyuki.](https://kaguyasama-wa-kokurasetai.fandom.com/wiki/Miyuki_Shirogane)

Apparently, the names of some of the characters in the anime/manga come from
[The Tale of the Bamboo
Cutter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_the_Bamboo_Cutter) where
there's a male character there named 'Miyuki', namely Ōtomo no Miyuki
(大納言大伴御行).

So we can see the kanji 御行 in both the Miyuki from Kaguya-sama and the Miyuki
from The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Consistent, but...

  1. ...what's up with that? How can males be named Miyuki?

  2. Actually, when I plug the kanji into [nihongodera](https://nihongodera.com/tools/kana-converter) or google translate, what I get is, resp, Ōtomo onkō and Ō tomo on kō. There doesn't seem to be any 'miyuki' here. What's going on?




みゆき as a masculine name is rare but not totally unheard of.

Here's an example:
[戸部{とべ}実之{みゆき}](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%88%B8%E9%83%A8%E5%AE%9F%E4%B9%8B)

You are not alone in thinking みゆき sounds very feminine. Apparently it sounds
feminine to a lot of native Japanese ears too. [The answerers
here](https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1068572045)
seem to unanimously consider みゆき a girl's name.




Partial answer, addressing #2 in the question post. :)

[NihongoDera](https://nihongodera.com/tools/kana-converter) is not the best
resource for names, which tend to have dedicated kanji readings that don't
always match the usual on or kun.

You might have better luck with the ENAMDICT dictionary (the name-focused side
of WWWJDIC), such as this mirror at Monash University:

  * [http://nihongo.monash.edu/cgi-bin/wwwjdic?2MUJ御行](http://nihongo.monash.edu/cgi-bin/wwwjdic?2MUJ%E5%BE%A1%E8%A1%8C)

Change the string at the end of the URL to look up a different name, by kanji,
kana, or romaji. Change the number `2` just after the `?` question mark to `1`
to look up regular words. Or just use the website UI. :)

Name entries tend to have codes added in parentheses to the left of each
romaji reading. The entry above, with that code highlighted, looks like:

![Screenshot of ENAMDICT entry for given name 御行
"Miyuki"](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vTvgZ.png)

The `(u)` here is the code. The [**Dictionary
Codes**](http://nihongo.monash.edu/wwwjdicinf.html#code_tag) section of the
help page, more specifically the **Names Dictionary Codes** sub-section
(scroll down a bit -- it's not possible to link to that directly,
unfortunately), explains what these mean. According to the table there, the
`u` code stands for "(as-yet) **u** nclassified" -- as compared to `s` for
**s** urnames, or `g` for a **g** iven name that isn't yet classed by gender,
or `f` for **f** emale given names, or `m` for **m** ale given names, etc.

Happy researching!

