Oiran or Courtesan

[David Clulow]

When researching names for Mr Ko's numbers, I came across an anomaly.  Rinoa has translated Mr Ko's e-Bay #24 as 'Oiran', the Chinese characters for this cutivar are 

花魁

here is the same page put through Google Translate

You can see that the Chinese characters for this cultivar name come out at 'Courtesan'

This is Rinoa's photo

a direct translation from Google Translate

So I checked on the internet the meaning of "Oiran"

Oiran (花魁) were courtesans in Japan. The oiran were considered a type of yūjo (遊女) "woman of pleasure" or prostitute. However, they are distinguished from the yūjo in that they were entertainers, and many became celebrities of their times outside the pleasure districts. Their art and fashions often set trends among the wealthy and, because of this, cultural aspects of oiran traditions continue to be preserved to this day.

So both 'Oiran' and 'Courtesan' are correct but the rules of botanical convention state that the first published valid name is the official one and therefore 'Oiran' will be the official name.

This reminds me a little of 'Noble Concubine', some of you thought it too raunchy but we stuck with it, one of us remarking that it was rather exotic.

[Mark Dimmitt]

But there's a glitch, David: There is no approved venue for "valid publication" of adenium cultivar names. And in any case, synonymous translations are irrelevant, at least until there is an official registry to determine which is to be used. The adenium world is, unfortunately, anarchic.

Sent from my iPad

On Sep 21, 2013, at 3:56 AM, David Clulow <david....@gmail.com> wrote:

When researching names for Mr Ko's numbers, I came across an anomaly.  Rinoa has translated Mr Ko's e-Bay #24 as 'Oiran', the Chinese characters for this cutivar are 

花魁

<1-Fullscreen capture 20092013 115607 a.m..jpg>

here is the same page put through Google Translate

<2-Fullscreen capture 20092013 115623 a.m..jpg>

You can see that the Chinese characters for this cultivar name come out at 'Courtesan'

This is Rinoa's photo

<4-550725_259127090869794_334572843_n.jpg>

a direct translation from Google Translate

<3-Fullscreen capture 21092013 054622 a.m..jpg>

So I checked on the internet the meaning of "Oiran"

Oiran (花魁) were courtesans in Japan. The oiran were considered a type of yūjo (遊女) "woman of pleasure" or prostitute. However, they are distinguished from the yūjo in that they were entertainers, and many became celebrities of their times outside the pleasure districts. Their art and fashions often set trends among the wealthy and, because of this, cultural aspects of oiran traditions continue to be preserved to this day.

So both 'Oiran' and 'Courtesan' are correct but the rules of botanical convention state that the first published valid name is the official one and therefore 'Oiran' will be the official name.

This reminds me a little of 'Noble Concubine', some of you thought it too raunchy but we stuck with it, one of us remarking that it was rather exotic.

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