Need help about 中川昌三 flutist name

MusicBrainz
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中川昌三 says himself in his OHP, that his name should be read as NAKAGAWA Masami.

He has two artist personas 中川昌三 for jazz and 中川昌巳 for classical, but both are read alike.

Note that 昌三 can be read Shōzō in another context.

Japanese names in kanji cannot always be guessed and here the artist is helping us with saying it’s Masami:

中川昌三オフィシャルサイト (Masami Nakagawa OHP)
僕はフルート奏者の中川昌三（まさみ）昌巳（まさみ）です。
えっ……何故、昌三と昌巳…名前が二つあるって？
以前、ジャズやブラジル音楽、ポップス等の音楽においては昌三の字を、クラシックや現代音楽においては昌巳の字と、音楽のジャンルによって名前を使い分けておりました。昌三、昌巳…両方共に同一人物で…僕、フルート奏者の中川昌三ですので、何卒よろしくお願いします！

But, an old various artists budget vinyl compilation credits him as Shozo Nakagawa.

Maybe they don’t have artist knowledge and they just bad guessed?

Some websites also bad guessed (probably with automated reading):

Indeed Google will translate 中川昌三 as Shozo Nakagawa in French, currently.
Of course all readings can be correct for this or that person, so Google nor anyone, no one can guess, they must know, in context.

@ms0010, maybe you could advise?

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It is possible that he dared to use or accept the reading “Shōzō” in the 70’s to avoid confusion.

  • The reading of 昌三 in the name of a middle-aged person is usually “Shōzō”, whereas “Masami” is not the mainstream reading.
  • “Masami” is a gender-neutral name.
  • After the late 1980s, when he became widely known to the public, his name consistently read “Masami”.
  • Both readings are found coexisting in the 70’s releases as well as in the previous mentioned KVX-5516 compilation vinyl, regardless of genre. [fig.]

I believe that they are all the same person “中川昌三” himself from his blog and other comments.

[ Side note about the Kanji name and its reading ]
Japanese kanji are ideographs and can be read in a variety of ways. There are many cases where a person’s name using the same kanji has a different reading. For example, the reading of famous 宮本浩次 in エレファントカシマシ is “Miyamoto, Hiroji”, which is different from the google translate “Miyamoto, Kōji” – “Kōji” in the more common reading, though. Therefore, automatic translation can lead to incorrect guess.

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