Craftsmanship in Wood

http://www2.odn.ne.jp/mandaraya/masatsura-spigpu.html

Now, I know most of you won't be able to read that page, but the interesting piece is that it gives a reading for one of the more famous current day blacksmith's names. Everywhere else I've seen his name mentioned, the name is read 'Masayuki'. The kanji are 正行, and indeed, that would be the first reading that came to my mind so i never thought it was any different. However the actual reading of his name is Masatsura! That's according to the website above, and I trust it to be correct.

Masatsura, along with Hiroyuki, are two famous hammer makers of today, both of whom apprenticed with the great Hasegawa Kōsaburo (長谷川幸三郎).

oddly enough Google translates it to Masayuki.

Yeah, it's a normal enough translation for those characters, however with Japanese surnames in particular there are all sorts of exceptions and special readings. It's a minefield where it is all too easy to make mistakes even if you are a native speaker of Japanese.

Makes sense, my wife tells me the same thing about mandarin. I attempted to repeat something she said and I'm pretty sure I ended up insulting her grandmother.

Wrong thread, but since we're on the topic of hammers I finally have a good hammer on the way. Got a Tenryuu from Japan tool and it should arrive mid-late March. I went all manner of fancy and went for the ebony handle.

I was under the impression that Baba Masayuki and Masatsura where both the same where one is his personal name and the other the brand name of his forging work? I have several of his tools, one was a gift of him personally and came with a video message I barely understood. I have not been able to meet him in person but it would be nice to have clarity about his name. All very confusing.

Chris, you say Hiroyuki instead of Hiroki as well?

Yes, it is a bit confusing. Now that you tell me that, i'm wondering what the situation really is- I'll ask Teshiba-san about the reading and whether Masatsura's hammers as a brand take the other reading.

As for 'Hiroyuki', I think I had a case of 'yuki' on the brain - it should have been Hiroki.