JAV Names
Western order with simplified Latin characters as default primary name, all other spellings as aliases.
JAV performers often have their names ordered in three different ways: Western order (GivenName FamilyName) with Latin characters, Japanese order (FamilyName GivenName) with Latin characters, and Japanese order with Japanese characters. Different sources will prefer different spellings. For StashDB, we prefer the Western order with Latin characters for all JAV performers as the primary name, matching the formatting of our non-JAV performers. This also makes things simpler for crossover performers who have worked in both Western and JAV productions. Names in the reverse order should always be included as aliases.
To give an example, we use the name Marica Hase on StashDB. She has done many Western scenes after starting on the JAV side of things, but her primary name is the same regardless of whether she’s considered a JAV performer or a Western performer: Marica Hase. Alternate spellings Hase Marica and はせまりか are included as aliases. All three are the same name, just spelled three different ways following three different formats.
The same guidelines for picking a primary name apply equally to JAV and Western performers. However, JAV performers may also have the same name spelled in various ways following various different conventions for using Latin characters. Typically, StashDB prefers the use of a simplified Hepburn romanization for primary names which avoids the use of double vowels like oo or uu as well as diacritic marks like ō or ū. This is also the same spelling preferred by X/s List which is one of the only remaining JAV databases in English. However, an exception may be allowed on a case-by-case basis if a particular romanization for their name that does not follow this convention is the most commonly used or is known to be the performer’s preferred spelling. Again, these are the same guidelines for choosing alternate spellings of Western performer names and they still apply here as well. But due to the difficulty for non-Japanese speakers to determine this for all but the most popular Japanese performers, using the simplified Hepburn spelling as the default should cover most JAV performers without requiring additional research.
As another example, we prefer the spelling of Yu Shinoda as the primary name instead of Yuu Shinoda or Yū Shinoda. If we were creating this performer for the first time, this would be a safe first assumption because it avoids using double vowels or diacritic marks and matches the spelling used on X\s List. If we really wanted to dig deeper (which isn’t required for an initial creation and is only possible because she’s a popular performer), we’d find different romaji spellings used on Minnano-AV, IMDB, Wikidata, and even her own Instagram. But since her agency, Twitter, IAFD, FreeOnes, and Babepedia all use Yu Shinoda, that remains the preferred option because it appears to be her own preferred romanization as well as the most commonly used spelling for English language databases. All other spellings that can be found should be used as aliases instead.