Only tangentially related, but reading over Taniyama's wikipedia page, I'm fascinated to see that he adopted the alternative pronunciation of his name. "Taniya

Only tangentially related, but reading over Taniyama's wikipedia page, I'm fascinated to see that he adopted the alternative pronunciation of his name. "Taniyama's given name 豊 was intended to be read as Toyo, but was frequently misread as the more common form Yutaka, which he eventually adopted as his own name." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yutaka_Taniyama#cite_ref-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yutaka_Taniyama#cite_ref-1 His family name has characters which can have strange pronunciations as well. I remember being so confused that Hasegawa would be written: 長谷川 (literally "long valley river") that you would expect to be Nagatanigawa. Why shouldn't Taniyama's name be Seyama to follow along? I wonder if his parents anticipated his struggles and gave him names which suited his path. These things about Japanese make it seem less prescriptive than it appears at first glance, and more beautiful. But, what a sad end to a brilliant thinker.