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In Japanese, I know you refer to your older sister as お姉さん and older brother as お兄さん. Something along those lines!

But I have 2 older brothers, and I want to change their contact names to Japanese, like "Joshua" to "お兄さん".

Both my brothers are similar in age, so to avoid confusion what would I change both of their contact names to? If I were to change them both to お兄さん, it would be hard for me to distinguish them. So what should I put?

Eddie Kal
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p r a i s e
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    Out of curiosity, isn't this a problem in English as well? I mean, if you label your brothers in your phone as 'brother' how do you tell them apart? What would be the way you distinguish between the two in English? – ajsmart Jan 07 '21 at 16:03
  • Some people address their older siblings as nickname (あだ名) + 兄/姉. But again, it is your phone and your address book, and you can do whatever you want. How about by 年功序列 (I mean 年齢/age)? いち兄、に兄とか？Like [一期一振](https://dic.pixiv.net/a/%E4%B8%80%E6%9C%9F%E4%B8%80%E6%8C%AF%28%E5%88%80%E5%89%A3%E4%B9%B1%E8%88%9E%29) 「藤四郎兄弟からは、一番上の兄として「いち兄」と呼ばれ慕われている。」 – Eddie Kal Jan 07 '21 at 22:18
  • @ajsmart Actually, no! In English, we don't refer to our brothers as "brother" and sisters as "sister". We just call them by their given name. My brother's name is Joshua, so I just call him Joshua. – p r a i s e Jan 08 '21 at 01:28
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    @praise Well, do you? My sister is just saved as 'Sis' in my phone. This feels a little like creating cultural differences when there are no real ones to me. Not everything has to be difficult ;) – Sam Jan 08 '21 at 03:56
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    @Sam oh no! I'm learning Japanese, so I wanted to practice by incorporating bits of Japanese into my daily life. – p r a i s e Jan 11 '21 at 14:34

2 Answers2

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Since there is no real universal rule regarding how to distinguish two big brothers or sisters in form of address, each family might have their own way, but one common pattern is [nickname] + 兄【にい】/姉【ねえ】. The [nickname] is often their given name shortened into two morae long. The suffix also could be 兄さん, 姉ちゃん etc.

Calling senior siblings お姉さん or お兄さん originally comes from the traditional concept that you should not refer to a senior person by their true name, so nowadays some families don't really care about it and just call each other [(nick)name] + くん/ちゃん.

Eddie Kal
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broccoli facemask
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like "Joshua" to "お兄さん".

How about 「ジョシュア兄さん」?

E.g.

[太郎]{たろう}[兄]{にい}さん [次郎]{じろう}[兄]{にい}さん
[花子]{はなこ}[姉]{ねえ}さん モモコ[姉]{ねえ}さん

Chocolate
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