This is a freewrite from this prompt
Big Wave- the first thing which comes to mind for me is Pearl S. Buck and her book the Big Wave. It was the reason I named my son Yiga. I so liked the character of the Japanese boy she portrayed in the book. Of course, I had read it in German and told my then-husband about it.
He understood the name to be Yiga and that is what we named him. In the German version, it was spelled Jiga. The funny thing is that all our Japanese relatives insisted that there was no such name in Japan.
That is what I was looking for - a Japanese name for my half German and half Japanese child. In the end, it wasn't' a Japanese name, but it has served him well.
He actually has lots of names. A Japanese (or as we know now -not ) a German and an American name since my in-laws were horrified that we were going to give that poor baby two names nobody could pronounce. Yiga and Wolfgang.
We threw a Daniel in for good measure. I don't think he has ever used anything but Yiga .
Our second child ended up a Onika which sounds very much like Yiga. I only found that out when they both were old enough that I was yelling at them. Then it was hard to figure out which name I was yelling - or so they said.
Onika is actually an African name, but we are pretending that it does sound Japanese.
Finally, with the 3rd kid, we got a hold of a real Japanese name. Jenkichi.
Jenkichi was my husband's paternal grandfather who had come from Okinawa to the US and Jenki was his maternal grandfather who also had come from Okinawa.
My husband is third generation but in the whole clan, I was the first non-Okinawan spouse.