Talk:Aoki Lapis/@comment-78.154.90.34-20120820203312/@comment-5017500-20120825200319

Word play is easy in Japanese language. One of the reasons is that each kanji character usually has two ways of readings: Chinese reading (on-yomi) and Japanese reading (kun-yomi). If "姫" had no chinese reading, then you couldn't read "蒼姫" as "Aoki".

But, to tell the truth, this word play sounds a little bit unnatural. In principle, we don't mix two ways of readings (though there's a few exceptions). "Ao" is a Japanese reading of "蒼", and "ki" is a Chinese reading of "姫". So, when you read "蒼姫" as "Aoki", you are mixing two ways of reading. On the other hand, it's no problem to read "青木" as "Aoki", because "ao" and "ki" are both Japanese reading in this case. Though non-Japanese people might not be interested in such a subtle issue.