Anyone semi fluent in Japanese? [boat name]

[JohnBoelte]

My boat partner and I have been wanting to name our boat and have been considering a Japanese name. A friend of his suggested "Youki Na Yatsura". Supposedly it means "Fun Loving Guys". I did a little on line translating and am not sure that what he was told is accurate. I'd sure hate to have that painted on my boat and find out later that it means "stupid round eye" or something like that.

[spc3897]

Just asked my wife (Japanese national) and confirmed; "fun loving guys" is an accurate translation.

Regards,
Steve

[sailingdog]

I was told it can be translated that way, but the form is somewhat unusual for Japanese, and not from the vernacular. My father speaks Japanese, having grown up in Japanese Occupied Korea.

It does not mean Stupid Round Eye...

BTW, my father says that Stupid Round Eye would be highly redundant.

[Zanshin]

Stupid Round Eye is "Baka Gaijin" and I personally like that boat name; then again, I grew up with that epithet!

[JohnBoelte]

Thanks guys!! I'm not 100% sold on the name yet. I have some concerns about VHF communication...

Sailingdog said that the form was a little odd. Is there a better way to translate "Fun Loving Guys" into Japanese? We'd like to be somewhat original in the name, and we both REALLY like sushi... But, naming the boat Maguro, Sake, or Hamachi doesn't really seem right....

[capttb]

I do know that Japanese naming convention uses the word Maru, see quote from Wiki:

The word maru (丸, meaning "circle") is often attached to Japanese ship names. There are several theories associated with this practice.

• (The most common): That ships were thought of as floating castles, and the word referred to the defensive "circles" or maru that protected the castle.
• That the suffix -maru is often applied to words representing something that is beloved, and sailors applied this suffix to their ships.
• That the term maru is used in divination and represents perfection or completeness, or the ship as a small world of its own.
• A legend of Hakudo Maru, a celestial being that came to earth and taught humans how to build ships. It is said that the name maru is attached to a ship to secure celestial protection for it as it travels.
• For the past few centuries, only non-warships bore the maru ending. It was intended to be used as a good hope naming convention that would allow the ship to leave port, travel the world, and return safely to home port--hence the complete circle arriving back to its origin unhurt.

Today commercial and private ships are still named with this convention.
The first ship known to follow this convention was the Nippon Maru, flagship of daimyo Toyotomi Hideyoshi's 16th century fleet.

[JohnBoelte]

Very interesting. Tank you Capttb!