In my opinion it isn't inherently racist however, having a black/dark skinned character with blonde/white hair to make them stand out is a tired trope. That being said I personally DO have black characters with white hair but I balanced it by having many black characters with all kinds of "unnatural" hair colors.

As far as the name is this character half Japanese or lives in Japan and was given that nickname? If not, you may want to consider giving her a name that means white like Kei, Bianca, or Livana, rather than just the word "white" in another language. If you go to babynames.com they have a search feature where you can look up names by their meaning.

The name isn't inherently racist, but it is very generic and kind of laughable. (I say this as an asian japanese-speaker) Are they Japanese? Even then, having just a colour as your name is a bit ridiculous. Even in "different cultures" we don't just name our children after their hair colour or whatever. They're not a dog.

Also the "black character with light hair" trope is considered to be annoying because it implies a black/brown character is only palatable if they're offset by traits that are typical to white people (light hair, blue eyes etc) - it's not inherently racist but is a tired and unpleasant trope that people of colour are sick of seeing. (EG. as a dark-skinned asian I am sick of darker-skinned asian characters having white lipstick and hair. it makes me very uncomfortable)

Please don't use baby names.com, it's a site that has zero real information
I don't think it's racist, but like, so many cool and interesting Japanese names, naming her Shiro...why? Is having something white is her only characteristic?

imo no, just put an explain they are named after the hair

Existing, charas called Shiro

Nashiro Yusahisa from Tokyo Ghoul

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And many more

Those characters are explicitly Japanese though. There's a reason they have those names - also Shiro from Deadman Wonderland isn't a normal human being and so is not subject to normal naming conventions.

Actual normal people born in Japan wouldn't be named "Shiro" - those characters are removed from reality on purpose. It's a literary device to show how abnormal and otherworldly they are.

Do not use TV shows that are purposefully cartoonish / edgy as support for what normal naming conventions are... especially when dealing with asian vs non-asian authors (or japanese-speaker authors) it's really ridiculous. It's normal for asian authors to name our characters ridiculous things for symbolism / poetic reasons. It's not normal for westerners to thoughtlessly throw random japanese words around to look quirky and cool.

How old is your friend?

Naming non japanese characters japanese names always comes off as "Things a middle schooler weeb would do".
If it's a fantasy type setting I guess you could get away with it. But I still fail to see the point. I personally name characters based off their family, where they're from, culture etc. Because I feel like a name is a great way to build upon a character's history.
But that's mostly a thing when you're using our world as a setting.

I don't know if I'd call it racist per se, but it's not going to serve the story in a meaningful way. It's maybe a little distasteful?

I'm white though so I'm not qualified to say something is or isn't racist.

It’s not racist, but it’s not original. That’s okay though, as long as she isn’t writing with the intent to be published with a traditional company.

That being said, there are other issues that may arise, but it depends on the target audience and platform.

My grandfather died before I was born, but that one story made me love him.

But why do you make the assumption of the type of genre/story OP's friend is trying to tell idgi?

The naming / writing conventions and tropes used by japanese authors are inherently different to how westerners make their choices. The cartoons you watched growing up had "abnormal" names by english-speaking standards not by the standards of asian authors. They're not the same.

What is the difference?

*For the example I gave Hamatora the characters are all Japanese btw with quirky english names

I mean you're making an assumption.

I'm literally not, whatsoever, because I'm epxlaining how it can be offensive within certain contexts but not others. If the character is A. asian and B. intended to not be taken dead serious, yes it's fine. However OP said the character was black, and never said anything about them being even remotely asian.

If you're not picking up the nuances of what I'm saying that's on you, sorry. I'm trying to make them clear.

I'm just trying to raise a point of why asian people don't like certain patterns in projects made by weebs, (literal weebs - weeaboos) and why it's important to be aware of it.

Aye, if you absolutely must include the color somewhere in the name, you don't have to just use the color lol

There's already existing names with colors or similar ideas to color used within their kanji like Shirogane and Kageyama and Aomori and if I'm right those names can be roughly translated to "white iron/blade", "shadowy mountain", and blue forest".

You can also take a look at how actual Japanese names are put together with their kanji and try coming up with one on your own with its own reasonable pronunciation, but please, I promise it won't hurt to put a little more effort than Google Translate

Edit: The comment's aimed at your friend btw please excuse my usage of "you"

I feel like having a black character with white/light colored hair isn't racist on its own (though as previously mentioned, it's a tired trope) but the name.... uhhhh. Yea, it's lazy at most, and I think it would be considered insensitive by others.

If I were your friend, I'd have the name be something representative of the character and/or their personality and/or also search for actual Japanese names. I have a character in one of my comic ideas named Lilith Crawford, Lilith meaning "ghost, night monster" and Crawford meaning "ford of the crows" - and that's just for English names. Japanese names have way more creative name meanings, trust me.

If other black people (as I'm not black, nor Japanese) would have a problem with the "black person with white hair" trope, I'd just have that character have black hair and black features, but have their clothes with a heavily white color palette. Seriously, black characters look great with a white color palette without having to do anything to hair or eye color.

As a black person, I personally prefer seeing black characters portrayed with fashion that black people rep instead of exotic dark-skinned characters (unless there's an actual cultural reason). It sounds like maybe they're visualizing just a really dark skinned asian character.

It's not racist just a bit exploitive and un-relatable. Maybe start with basing characters off with everyday black people. To be fair I live in the US.

Just a question, is this racist?

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We all know Storm from ages, and I am not aware of any kind of racist call for her hair, or name (Ororo meaning 'beauty'). Her's hair and eyes are explained as genetic legacy, not part of her mutation, and play for her backgrounds.
I say that if Marvel could do this, you could too. Just flesh out everything to have a meaning, and not a description of something that we can already see, and everything will go fine.

... I don't know. I'm not black, so I would think the name "Shiro" (white) is referring to his hair and that maybe he got his name because of his hair, so it doesn't look problematic to me. It's not like he is trying to be a white person or wishes to be a white person. He is just a black person with white hair.

On another webcomic I read, Stringy and Mopy, one of the characters is called Snow White and she is black with black hair and doesn't even dress or look like Snow White. So maybe it is a case of overthinking it.

As a African American artist, its not a big deal. she should go right ahead. one of my african characters have blond highlights. and, the old music artist "sisco", died his hair white.

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Agreed. When I look for names, I like names that have a story or names that have a nice ring to it, rather than a meaning behind it. Unless it is explicitly explained and relates to the story, most people will just overlook it. I would recommend your friend research into some names in Japanese culture. I have seen a few stories with main characters named Norang (yellow) or Hayan (white) but those kind of names are easily forgettable.

I think context on the setting and the character can help better to see how much the name and the character's look can be fitting or not......

Marvel doing something and any other creator is not the same thing. At all. And you literally addressed the elephant in the room with this statement, rendering it a moot point. From the OP, we don’t know why this character has white hair. Like you pointed out, there’s a reason for storm having her hair color and eyes. And gee, her name has cultural significance to her.

General statement: I don’t see why some of y’all are cherry picking and doing all these leaps and bounds to miss the point so hard.

@Prince_Wumbl you are a gem. There’s no way I’d expend so much emotional labor repeatedly making the same point. You’ve explained yourself and the point and I’m sure drawing it out in crayon wouldn’t help.

@Tanako there’s a big difference in choosing to dye your hair and slapping some random features on a black character. And even if said character had an unnatural hair color, it’s a choice by the creator, which still begs the questions, why.

Editing to add: racism doesn’t exist in a vacuum. A black character with white (and any other color) hair isn’t inherently racist. But shying away from Afro centric features and the like is a slippery slope and I’ve seen so many people take a tumble. Also, as said above, giving characters culturally significant names (also a general statement) because you think it “sounds nice” is appropriation.

And comparing eastern and western culture when it comes to a lot of things (names) is apples and oranges.

This discussion is usless since we don’t have nearly any information about the world building.

Like absolutely zero.

People seem to always forget the factor that parents are the ones who’ve named to character and thus would be the people responsible for the well chosen or badly chosen name.

Parents can name their children whatever they want so long as the government approves of it- which again is world building information.

You could call your character/child Tree if you wanted. Is it weird? Yes. Is it something you can do? Yes. Will people call them tree if they meet them? Maybe, maybe not. Professor OAK is a name that exisits and is in fact named after a tree SO.

I don’t even know if this is a historical story which naming conventions would be important or a “neo Japan- totally not actually callafornia” setting where naming conventions arnt even a real thing anymore.

If it’s supposed tp be a modern setting then naming conventions aren’t even important anymore because there’s PLENTY of children named after GOT characters now. People name their children after things they like most of the time so like???

The only actually racist thing about this entire conversation is people are asking if someone with dark skin is allowed to be called a word that means “white” thinking skin color is more important then

1. Personally
2. Family
3. Setting
4. Time period
5. Any amount of time on world building
6. Story
7. Themes

Right, true, but um, yea, the creator if the character has the be all end all on what a character's name is. And also Shiro could easily be a nickname given to the character as well, it doesn't have to come from their parents or guardians.

Let's not call people asking questions and informing themselves in an effort to be less ignorant, racist. There are plenty of loaded questions out there that have those specific implications. I would posit, that this is not one of them.

I have no faintest idea on what you are getting at. and to be honest, I don't share the same view as you so you might as well stop trying to prove your point to me. you owe me nothing and I don't owe you anything as well.
The original post say "What do you think? Is it racist, or we overthink it?". And I gave my opinion and here you are attacking my comment.

to be honest, all that you have said means absolutely nothing to me. I gave OP my perspective so let's all stay on topic.

no its not racist, that would be a reach to say so, you're just referencing the characters hair