Enamdict

     Enamdict is a proper name dictionary containing just about every place and personal name in Japan, as well as Japanese versions of many foreign place and personal names--a grand total of about 714,000 names. Japanese names can be searched by kanji* and kana, while non-Japanese names can be searched by English spelling, kana, and, when there is a kanji version, by kanji.* Click each image to see a larger 480x640 version; the actual resolution of a VGA PDA screen is actually higher than I can reproduce here (see below).

     Using Enamdict is pretty intuitive: enter the name you want to look up--in kanji, kana, or, if a non-Japanese name, English--in the search box at the top left and tap the "Find" button. Because of the way the index is set up, you should choose "Begin" as the search type in the box to the right of the "Find" button. The top part of the main window shows the list of results from the index, the bottom part the full entries for the results, and you can change the proportions of top and bottom by dragging the line separating them up or down. That's all you really need to know, but you can also take a look at the general instructions for all dictionaries.

     Enamdict is one of the fruits and the intellectual property of the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, under the fearless leadership of Prof. Jim Breen, at Monash University in Australia (copyright and license terms).

Download my version of Enamdict: EPWING, PDIC.

*By "kanji," I mean how the word is usually written in Japanese, whether completely in kanji or in a combination of kanji and kana.

Note that I've sized the images above to appear about the same physical size as the Axim X50V's screen (depending on your monitor, of course); however the actual Axim screen squeezes a full 480x640 pixels into that space, so it's much sharper and easier to read (more pixels in the same size=higher resolution). You can click each image to see the actual 480x640 pixels you'd get on the screen of an Axim or other VGA PDA, although because the image will then be much larger than on the Axim screen it still won't look quite as sharp as the real thing. And of course you can change the text size to be larger or smaller, too, which will also affect legibility.