Kirk here with another bird post. I Google “Kumamoto” from time to time in order to check up on recent news related to this community. Yesterday when I did that, a summary of Wikipedia’s page for Kumamoto Prefecture came up and I happened to notice that the official prefectural bird was listed as “great tit,” (which I later learned is “シジュウカラ” [shijuukara] in Japanese). That led me to check Japanese sources and I found that the official birds of Kumamoto Prefecture and Kumamoto City were reversed on the English Wikipedia pages. I’ve since corrected them and now the official bird for Kumamoto Prefecture is correctly displayed as “Asian skylark” (“hibari” in Japanese) – the bird pictured on the right.
I’m a jazz fan and learning about the Asian skylark reminded me that the great Hoagy Carmichael wrote a tune, now a standard, called “Skylark.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7HsGBJjilQ
I don’t think he ever wrote a similar tribute to the great tit, even though it’s a very attractive bird. Sometimes a name that that is completely unremarkable in one language carries different connotations in another language – which reminds me of recent discussion of Asian Americans Anglicizing there names to try to fit in: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/npr/2022/04/11/1091407334/a-chinese-student-americanized-her-name-to-fit-in-it-took-more-to-feel-she-belonged/
I’m not recommending a name change for Kumamoto City’s bird. But, as someone with a name that took me aback when I first heard how it was pronounced in Japanese, I can sympathize if he/she/they feel any discomfort with the English rendering of his/her/their name.