page_title: Japanese honorifics
section_title: San
hierarchical_section_title: Japanese honorifics / Common honorifics / San
caption_attribution_description: 日本語: １０月３１日生まれ　千葉県出身 趣味：裁縫 資格：アドバンスドオープンウォーターすくーばだいばー
context_page_description: The Japanese language makes use of honorific suffixes when referring to others in a conversation. These suffixes are attached to the end of names, and are often gender-specific. Honorific suffixes also indicate the level of the speaker and referred individual's relationship and are often used alongside other components of Japanese honorific speech, called keigo.
context_section_description: San (さん), sometimes pronounced han (はん) in Kansai dialect, is the most commonplace honorific and is a title of respect typically used between equals of any age. Although the closest analog in English are the honorifics "Mr.", "Miss", "Ms.", or "Mrs.", -san is almost universally added to a person's name; -san can be used in formal and informal contexts, regardless of the person's gender. Because it is the most common honorific, it is also the most often used to convert common nouns into proper ones, as seen below.
  San may be used in combination with workplace nouns, so a bookseller might be addressed or referred to as hon'ya-san ("bookstore" + san) and a butcher as nikuya-san ("butcher's shop" + san).
  San is sometimes used with company names. For example, the offices or shop of a company called Kojima Denki might be referred to as "Kojima Denki-san" by another nearby company. This may be seen on small maps often used in phone books and business cards in Japan, where the names of surrounding companies are written using -san.
  San can be attached to the names of animals or even for cooking; "fish" can be referred to as sakana-san, but both would be considered childish (akin to "Mr. Fish" or "Mr. Fishy" in English) and would be avoided in formal speech. Married people, when referring to their spouse as a third party in a conversation, often refer to them with -san.
  Due to -san being gender-neutral and commonly used, it can be used to refer to any stranger or acquaintance whom one does not see as a friend. However, it may not be appropriate when using it on someone who is close or when it is clear that other honorifics should be used.
caption: Endō-san tanjōbi omedetō (Happy birthday, Mr. Endō)
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