14098


In _Wagnaria_ AKA _Working!!_ Yamada always says her name when she refers to
herself (according to NISA's subtitles) ie.

> Everyone is spoiling the lost girl, Yamada wants to be spoiled too!

this seems different from when characters refer to each other as "you" or
"her" in the subtitles but we can hear them say the person's name. I am
wondering why does Yamada keep saying her name?


CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-09-21T23:24:38.473
14093
2014-09-22T06:47:39.983
1587
question
wagnaria
Why does Yamada always say her name?


In Japanese culture, children often refer to themselves in the third person
(see [this question from Japanese Language Stack
Exchange](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/6410/why-do-children-
call-themselves-by-their-name), and also [the Wikipedia article on
Illeism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illeism#In_everyday_speech), which is
the technical term for referring to yourself in the third person. [This JLSE
question](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/2320/speaking-in-the-
third-person) also gives more of the nuances of using illeism in Japanese.) A
Western example of this would be Elmo, the Sesame Street character, although
in the West, illeism usually makes someone look big-headed rather than cute,
like former WWE superstar The Rock, who always referred to himself in the
third person as "The Rock".

In anime, older characters with childish personalities often also use the
third person; for example, Bakemonogatari's Nadeko always refers to herself as
"Nadeko". (If you see "I" or "me" in the subtitles, it was added by the
translators.) Yamada claims to be sixteen if I recall correctly, so she should
be too old for this (though [the second comment on this JLSE
answer](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/2321) claims that even women in
their twenties will do this in real life), but she spends most of her time
acting like she's much younger than she really is, trying to be cute and make
people like her and praise her and overlook her mistakes. She tries to adopt a
"poor orphan in search of a loving family" kind of persona and get people like
Otou, Yachiyo, and Hiromi to feel sorry for her and join her ideal family. I
think her use of her own name is meant to play up her assumed role as the
cute, spoiled youngest child of her imaginary family.

You're right that this is different from other times when the subtitles
translate a name as "you" or "her"; that usage is more in line with what's
described in [this Japanese Language Stack Exchange
question](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/591/are-first-second-
and-third-person-in-japanese-all-the-same-as-in-english), where you address
someone by name instead of using a second-person or third-person pronoun, as a
matter of respect. Going by Yamada's personality, I think it's a childish
affectation.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-09-22T06:47:39.983
14098
2014-09-22T06:47:39.983
2017-04-13T12:43:49.183
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14093
answer