Birth name Hikaru Utada
(surname, Utada)
Nickname: Hikki
Blood Type: A
Information
Utada Hikaru was born in the upper east side of New York on January 19, 1983, and is the only child of Utada Teruzane and Abe Junko. Utada’s parents both worked in the music industry – her father, Utada Teruzane (or Skingg U) is a music producer, and her mother was an extremely famous Enka singer in the 1970′s, who went under the alias of Fuji Keiko. Utada was raised in both New York and Tokyo, and felt as if both Tokyo and New York were her hometown.
Utada did not originally like the idea of having music as a career, as she saw her parents leading a hectic life and sacrificing so much for music. She was immersed in the music business, and frequently had to sleep on the couch in her parents’ recording studio. When she was 10 years old, her parents asked her if she was able to write a song. She reluctantly tried, and wrote the song I’ll Be Stronger, which appeared on vinyl. At the same age, she also did small vocal parts in her parents’ music project, U3. On the album Star, you are able to hear a 10-year-old Utada singing backup in two songs: THANK YOU and Kodomotachi no Uta ga Kikoeru.
While in school in New York, other students had trouble pronouncing her name ‘Hikaru’, and eventually shortened it to ‘Hikki’. At the time she did not realize what ‘Hickey’ (a kiss mark) meant, but only found out later on. This nickname is used even to this day between her fans (both English and Japanese) While in Tokyo, Utada studied at The American School in Japan, graduating in 2000.
Thanks to: Wiki.ThePPN
