by edededed on Thu Sep 18, 2008 6:23 pm
I can answer nearly any question about Japan you like.
D or "Dee" is a "foreign sound" in the minds of Japanese, i.e. because it does not exist as a mora (phonetic syllable) in Japanese (you don't ever have to use the sound "dee" when speaking Japanese), it sounds cool. In English, we have the Alphabet, and thus we don't really pay attention to certain moras that we do not use (like noone cares about the "zha" sound (zh as in the s in measure)), but as Japanese uses a writing system that specifies the moras (i.e. hiragana and katakana), it is much more easy to notice.
It seems weird, but in Japanese, even though there are "dah" (da), "deh" (de), and "doh" (do) sounds, there isn't a "dee" (di) or "doo" (du) sound.
So, anyway, foreign-sounding things sound cool. As such, foreign-sounding or foreign-looking names (that are not actually foreign) are often used in product names and such here. Other popular foreign-ish sounds/spellings include anything with a "v," using a "c" instead of a "k," many combinations of "f," and so on.
For example, some recent product names:
Diga
Viera
Vaio
The tendency for these "foreign" spellings is quite high - if you are ever sitting in a Japanese train, just look around at the advertisements.
Some stupid famous people even use the "foreign" letters to write their names (like "Tomiko Van," for example, who is really "Tomiko Ban" (and not a type of automobile (guess she doesn't know that definition))). Some non-famous people even do this on their namecards, which is stupid.