Yes, Congratulations.

This is a very rare name meaning to tell all the arcane or secret teachings to someone, or by implication to have been told them. It is often used in the four character word "menkyoukaiden" which means much the same thing, where

"menkyoukaiden wo ukeru" is to be initiated into the mysteries of something.

It is made of two pictograms, read using their Sino-Japanese (rather than Japanese-Japanese) readings:

Kai - everyone or everything
Den - communicate, tell

I have uploaded the pictograms (Kanji) here

http://www.proz.com//home/8304/prozgif-kaiden.gif

I like the characters and the idea of a name which means "initiate" or "initiated" but I don't think that I would recommend this as a name if you think your son might use it in Japan or with Japanese.

To someone who does not recognise the word (and the word is rare) it looks like "Tell all" or "Tell everyone."

The word kaiden is very rare but the words "kaidan" meaning "stairwell" or kaidan (with different characters) meaning "scary story" are very well known. Since children are (by definition) juvenile, I think that they might be inclined to make puns on this name.

But perhaps this is just me being juvenile. And in anycase it is probable that your son will not be growing up among Japanese children, and only meet Japanese when they are at an age to realise the true meaning of the name.

I am not sure what other possibilities to suggest.








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Note added at 2002-01-08 08:25:01 (GMT)
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Errata,

\"Kaidan\" means stairs or staircase