We are often asked what does 'Shimai' mean? Finding a band name is never easy, many of the names we thought of and liked were already taken.

We needed some help so we put our heads together… Who were we, what were we? What was our sound? What name would suit us and capture this? After two hours of ideas tea and cake were needed! Then our Dad who has played music all his life and who is also heavily into martial arts, came up with the Japanese word for 'sisters' - 'shimai'.

Hmmmm....... not bad… 'Shimai', it had a nice musical ring to it, and we are 'sisters'. Yes we had it at last, 'Shimai'! In the Welsh Language 'Shwmae' translates as 'Hi' or an informal 'Hello' and being native to Wales we both rather liked that added connotation of the name.

'Shimai' was born!