307 On Japanese generic names: are they part of the language? Tomohiro Sakai In this paper, I will argue, drawing on some facts about the Japanese writing system, against Kaplan’s (1990) claim that generic names are a part of the language. Kaplan’s thesis consists of the following two statements: (i) natural languages have, at a given time, a fairly fixed stock in their lexicon of generic names, and (ii) when we name peo- ple, we usually draw from this relatively small, finite lexicon of generic names. Japa- nese generic names can be classified into three groups, depending on the answers given to the following three questions: (a) can ordinary speakers tell whether it is a name or not? (b) can ordinary speakers write it with kanji? and (c) can ordinary speakers recognise all its possible notations with kanji? The three groups, which we will call Groups A, B and C in this paper, answer the questions (a)/(b)/(c) with “yes/yes/no”, “yes/no/no” and “no/no/no”, respectively. Kaplan’s thesis does not apply to names in Groups B-C. In contrast, it can be said to apply to Group A as far as spoken language is concerned. Yet, (i) and (ii) cannot be jointly satisfied in written language. No mat- ter how loosely one may interpret “fairly” and “usually” in Kaplan’s statements, it is not possible to define a fairly fixed stock of pronunciation-kanji parings from which parents usually draw. The more novel, the better, when it comes to written names. keywords: Japanese, kanji, lexicon, generic name, twinkling name 1. Introduction 1 The identity of names raises a philosophical question. Do Carl von Linné and Carl Larsson, for instance, have the same name or diferent names? In a sense, they seem to have one and the same name, Carl. However, as De Stefani (2016:55) and Nyström (2016:40) note, there is a long-standing tradition in philosophy of language of individuating names solely by the particulars they name. Thus, Russell (1918/2010:13) says that “[a] name can just name a particular, or, if it does not, it is not a name at all, it is a noise”. On this view, Carl von Linné and Carl Larsson can never be con- sidered to have the same name, since their names have distinct bearers. To settle the issue, Kaplan (1990, 2011) puts forward two conceptions of names: common currency name and generic name. Common currency 1 This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 18K00551.