So, while I was cleaning up "tagme" I came across this image:
post #993453
The image source was Pixiv and the artist name was "カナヤ". I ran this through this Romanji translator and got "kanaya". Two questions, should I have done this and is the translation accurate?

Yes, and yes. However, there may be better names, as usernames in the Latin alphabet trump those in Japanese script. For instance, if they have a Twitter handle which they use to upload art, that (or a truncated form) would be preferred.

I'll keep that in mind. However, since was just a quick fixer-upper, I just went with the Pixiv name and didn't try to see if other names existed.

Artists occasionally add their Twitter account to their Pixiv profiles, although you'll have to check if they upload the art there too.

I'll check it out.
Update: No dice, I'll let the Romaji stand.

Google Translate also romanizes japanese text automatically.

One good practise is to ask to alias the japanese name to romanized one, so if someone uploads stuff from that artist in the future it will automatically be turned to romanized one instead.

However seeing how that particular artist only has that single image here and that's the only one from their gallery to be relevant here, just doing romanization and moving on should do it. Especially when the nickname is name of town, making it impossible to search and they do not have any accounts linked on their pixiv.

Mario69 said:
Google Translate also romanizes japanese text automatically.

One good practise is to ask to alias the japanese name to romanized one, so if someone uploads stuff from that artist in the future it will automatically be turned to romanized one instead.

However seeing how that particular artist only has that single image here and that's the only one from their gallery to be relevant here, just doing romanization and moving on should do it. Especially when the nickname is name of town, making it impossible to search and they do not have any accounts linked on their pixiv.

I found one other image marked tagme by this guy. It's already been approved, but yeah, I agree it's not necessary to go into aliases for an artist who primarily doesn't do furry.
post #993448

BinaryHedgehog said:
Two questions, should I have done this and is the translation accurate?

Generally, you should tag it as the original nick and then submit an alias. So users can find the artist without having to learn how to translate Japanese.

Machine translation can sometimes work, but only for katakana. It doesn't work for hiragana nicks, those almost always ends up mangled. Those should be transliterated instead.

I wasn't sure accurate the machine translation was, so that's why I asked for verification. I don't know what the different Japanese alphabets look like to be honest.

BinaryHedgehog said:
I wasn't sure accurate the machine translation was, so that's why I asked for verification.

Machine translation usually treats hiragana and kanji as words instead of names, so it can't be relied on. But that one's katakana, and accurate.

Genjar said:
Machine translation usually treats hiragana and kanji as words instead of names, so it can't be relied on. But that one's katakana, and accurate.

Since I'm in no way, shape, or form fluent in Japanese, should I find help when trying to take Japanese names and put them in Romanji?

Instead of relying upon Google Translate to get names in romaji, try this.