kanji - Can I write Japanese name "Midori" this way - 緑?

There is female Japanese name "Midori," and I want to know the ways I can write it. I know it means "green," but maybe the name and "green" are different words sometimes.

I used google-translator to get variants. I want to know if all of those variants are used to write the name Midori. Otherwise I am interested in what they mean.

As far as I can understand, the first variants are kanji and next ones are hiragana:

• ミドリ



• みどり and みどりの

What is the difference between these? What does the "no" mean?

Answer

Searching on a name dictionary you'll get a long long list (93) of "midori" as a girl's given name. This excludes "midori" being used as a family name or a place name.

"Midori" is not limited to the kanji for green though. It can be made up of other kanji having 名乗り (nanori - name reading) of "mi", "do", "ri", "mido", "dori" compounded to form "midori".

And yes you can use 緑 or 翠 as a standalone kanji for the name Midori.

For brevity I will not list all 93:

Kana and Kanji mix:

みど梨

みど理

みど里

み外里

み登り

3 Kanji compounds:

三十里

三都里

光巴里

光都里

妙登利

2 Kanji compounds:

三彩

光鳥

実酉

常緑

碧里

There is also the possibility that a name is spelled purely in Hiragana:

みどり

In this case, writing that person's name using Kanji would be wrong.

For Midorino:

緑野 [みどりの] (Don't worry about the meaning of "no" it's just the way the name sounds) it can be both a girl's name and a family name.

緑埜 [みどりの] is a family name instead of a girl's name.

Alternatively it could be Midori + Genitive case marker の.

i.e. みどりの本 to mean "Midori's book"

or 緑の本 to mean "a green (coloured) book"