blog.cleveland.com on Kobayashis
The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s blog has an entry about relief pitcher Masahide “Masa” Kobayashi and his more famous namesake:
In case you’re wondering: No, The Tsunami and Masa are not related. But Masa was amused when Plain Dealer sports guy Dennis Manoloff put the question to him through an interpreter.
Kobayashi is the eighth-most-popular surname in Japan, the equivalent of O’Connor in Ireland, Zhou in China, Becker in Germany, Ramirez in Mexico, Popov in Russia, Svensson in Sweden, Macdonald in Scotland and (sorpresa, y’all) Rodriguez in the United States.
Dozens of notable people, one Japanese city and one “Star Trek” spaceship all bear the name that translates as “small forest,” including haiku master Issa Kobayashi (1763-1828).
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