Counters for people（人、名）

Counter for people（人）

The counter for people is ～人「～にん」.

Note on pronunciation

• One person uses the Japanese pronunciaton, 一人「ひとり」
• Two people uses the Japanese pronunciation, 二人「ふたり」
• The rest of the numbers use the Chinese pronunciation of the number followed by ～人「～にん」. For example, three people would be 三人「さん・にん」.

Formal counter for people（名）

When entering a restaraunt, or making a booking, you will likely encounter the formal counter for people, ～名「～めい」.

「お客様は何名様ですか？」How many people are there?

To which you may reply using the general counter

「四人です。」There are 4 people.

Differences between ～人「～にん」and ～名「～めい」

To understand which counter to use and in which situation, consider the Kanji being used. ～人 is the Kanji for people, and ～名 is the Kanji for names.

Thus, you can only use ～名 when an individual can be properly identified. In situations where the individual cannot be identified, you should use ～人.

For example, if you are talking about the number of spectators at a game, or attendees at a protest, you must use ～人 as the individual attendees cannot be identified. If you are talking about number of employees in a company, you may use ～名 as each individual in a company can be identified.

The second difference is when you wish to show respect to the person you are talking to, or are talking about a number of subordinates in respect to yourself, you may use ～名. ～人 is considered more humble and should be used when talking about members of your own group or family.

Thus as per our example above when entering a restaurant, you will find that people in the hospitality industry will use ～名 when talking to a client or customer to show respect to them.

Further Reading

• https://chielabo.com/how-to-counting-people/ (Japanese)