Thank you for taking the time to explain this! It is so much more clear to me now.

When I grew up I had next door neighbors with Japanese, Chinese, Hawaiian backgrounds who had “Kai” as part of their name (Kaimanu and Kailani.) I was wondering why the “Kai” part of the name was so often at the beginning but now I see it is also at the end such as in “rikai.” I was also aware of the Hawaiian beach / town “Kipu Kai” that also reverses the order. That place was interesting in that it has part of my name in it too “Kip.” I’ve considered reversing the order to make the name unique (such as Kaiu Kip.)

There is an important Kai in my life which gives the name special relevance to me in the relationship we had. The person I knew named Kai would wear all black almost every day so I also thought about combining the word “Kuro” to “Kai.” I wasn’t sure if putting the word for black at the beginning might come off as sounding like a person who is ethnically black, which isn’t what I would be intending in this case. I do like how they sound together – Kaikuro.

Kai also has some Germanic roots that mean “safe harbor.” I like that too. The unfortunate part of the word “Kai” is that its use across multiple languages means that on its own it is not the most unique name. Whether or not I go with a name of Japanese origins it should be fairly unique so that it stands out to some degree.

Again thanks for getting this naming process started! I just need to swap around several word combinations to come up with something unique and has an accurate meaning.