Miyano-sama / Japanese Language / Respect in Japanese

Showing Respect in Japanese

You will often notice Japanese people attaching suffixes like "-san", "-kun" to the end of the given name or family name. These suffixes or rather titles are used to show the kind of relationship between the people.

The following table explains what is the implied relationship for each title.

Title	Relationship
(Plain)	If two people call each other with their given names with no titles, then they have very close relationship.
-san	When someone use this title to address someone, then it is implied that he or she is showing respect to the person addressed by it. It also means that the two people don't have close relationship. If the person addressed with "-san" isn't a superior to the one who address him by this title, then it is expected that he would also call him in the same way.
-kun	This title may be used in many different cases, to show different kind of relationships 1) A superior calls people who have lower status than him by this title. Example of those who have this "privilege" are Old people when talking with young ones, the boss when talking with his staff. 2) People of the same status who belong to the same club, company, est., might as well use this title to address each other. 3) This title is also used to show friendly relationship with a boy or a man.
-chan	Basically, this title is used to show friendly relationship with a girl. However it can be used as a childish way for mother to call her son or daughter
-sama	This title is a more polite than "-san". Usually servants would call their masters with this title.
-neechan / -oneesan	This literally means "Big Sister". The kids would often use this title to address elder girls.
-niichan / -oniisan	This literally means "Big brother". The kids would often use this title to address elder boys.
-senpai	(Pronounced sempai) This is a title for a superior in school or work. Anyone who studies in higher level than you in the school is said to be a "senpai" for you.
-kouhei	This is exactly the opposite of "-senpai"
ojousama / ojousan	This title is used to address a lady or a daughter from a wealthy family. Sometimes old people would use this term to show respect to young ladies. It can be used as well as a standalone word.

Now that we know how these titles are used, I'm going to list how some of Detective Conan characters address each other.

Conan and Ran

Conan usually calls Ran as "Ran-neechan". The implication is that he respects her as his elder. However, there are times when he forgets to say this title. Moreover, when he is in his normal size, he calls her as "Ran" with no titles. On the other hand Ran calls him as "Conan-kun". When he is in his normal size, she would call him "Shinichi" with no titles. However when she needs to be polite in front of other people, she would refer to him by "Shinichi-kun".

It's worth to mention that there was a time when Shinichi started to call Ran as "Mouri-san", and wanted her to call him by "Kudo-kun". That was a little after they entered the elementary school and Shinichi thought that it would be more adult-like to use these titles.

Professor Agasa and everybody else

As an old man, Professor Agasa has the privilege to call everybody else using the "-kun" title, because he is superior to them. But then again, there are times when he would use the family name instead of the given name. For instance, he calls Ran as "Ran-kun" and Kogoro as "Mouri-kun".

Conan and Detective Boys

Ayumi and Mitsuhiko refers to Conan by "Conan-kun", but Genta calls him with no title. This rudeness of Genta is because he thinks of himself as the leader of Detective Boys Club. Ayumi calls him "Conan-kun" because she has a crush on him so she always wants to sound friendly with him. However, the reason that Mitsuhiko addresses Conan with the "-kun" title is just because he is taught to be polite by his parents who are teachers. On the other hand, Conan addresses the Mitsuhiko and Genta with "-kun" title, and "Ayumi" with "-chan" title. When he is not in the mood, he does not bother address these kids with any kind of titles.

Conan and Ai

When they talk in private, Ai calls Conan as "Kudo-kun", but in public she would call him "Edogawa-kun". On the other hand, Conan always refers to her by her fake family name, "Haibara". The implication is that they don't have close relationship.

Ai and others

When she first entered the elementary school, everyone were calling her "Haibara-san". But after a while, she allowed Ayumi to call her by saying "Ai-chan", but she has never allowed Genta or Mitsuhiko to do that. Moreover she would call everybody else with their family names. The implication is that she wants to make a distance between them and her. In general, Ai does not try to act like a child, and therefore she doesn't use "oneesan" or "oniisan" to refer to her elders like Conan would. The exception is her own sister, Akemi, which always refers to her by "Oneechan"

Sonoko and Ran

Since they have very close relationship, they don't use any title to address each other.

Kazuha and Ran

Ran's relationship with Kazuha isn't as strong as it with Sonoko, so they use the "-chan" title to address each other.

Takagi and Sato

For being a superior for Takagi, Sato always calls Takagi as "Takagi-kun", while he has to call her "Sato-san".

Rena and Eisuke

Rena calls Eisuke by saying "Ei-chan". The implication is that she is very familiar with him. I can conclude from this that she is really his sister. Since Eisuke believes that she is another person, he calls her "Mizunashi Rena". Of course he does not use any title with her because he does not respect her at all! However, he refers to his sister by "Hidemi-neesan".

The Black Organization Members and the boss

All members of the black organization refer to their boss by saying "that person". There're several versions of the word "person" in Japanese. Since he is their boss, they use the most polite version, which is "Kata". Technically, the word "kata" is not a title, so you should not confuse it with the title words.