Personal names in -rō?

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Александр Запрягаев

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Oct 28, 2022, 8:09:55 AM10/28/22
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Everyone,

I've been wondering and looking for possible references. Is there any research about the principles in assigning zokumyō/kemyō personal (male) names of the form "number + rō"? It seems that, at least originally, they referred to birth order, as alot is being made of Yoshitsune being called Kurō while actually being the ninth son in the family. However, it doesn't look such a scheme was maintained for long: Nobuyoshi, Ieyasu's fifth son, was Shichirō, for example, and apparently there were several different people named Gorō among Nobunaga's brothers, none of them the fifth. Has there been any study of patterns or explicit explanations as to the choice of numbers in the names of such kind?

Best regards,

Alexander Zapryagaev

Sachi Schmidt-Hori

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Oct 28, 2022, 8:37:52 AM10/28/22
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Dear Alexander,

 

Hello. You said

> as alot is being made of Yoshitsune being called Kurō while actually being the ninth son in the family

but do you mean “being the eighth son”?

 

You can refer to this book about the naming culture of Japan in general https://www.google.com/books/edition/Japan_s_Name_Culture/fNQjDQ-mWYgC?hl=en as well as for your particular question (see page 43).

 

Naming practices in premodern and/or traditional societies are so different from what we (those of us living in modern societies) are used to. So I would encourage you to look into the naming culture in premodern Japan at large…. It’s quite interesting. Of course, there are many more studies in the Japanese language.

 

Sincerely,

 

Sachi

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Mikhail Skovoronskikh

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Nov 8, 2022, 9:40:26 AM11/8/22
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Dear Alexander,

This may be a belated suggestion, but you may find the following Japanese books informative:

大藤修『日本人の姓・苗字・名前』（吉川弘文館、2012年） 
尾脇秀和『氏名の誕生―江戸時代の名前はなぜ消えたのか』（筑摩書房、2021年）  

Best regards,
Mikhail Skovoronskikh


Jon Holt

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Nov 8, 2022, 10:39:03 AM11/8/22
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Sorry all,

As a follow-up -- does anyone have a good reference for women's personal names?  The Plutschow book that Sachi recommended was very good -- but he mostly covers male names.  There is a female name chapter (just 1!) in the book, but it focuses on (lack of) surnames and their clan/estates -- mostly for elites.  I've always wondered why for the regular womenfolk we see the O-prefix for women's personal names but around early Showa, that practice dies out.  Suddenly we have women's names with the -ko suffix.

Would the group help me?  I know we're off topic from -ro, but could we talk about o- and -ko?

Thank you
Jon Holt
Portland State University


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Rosemary Schwegel

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Nov 8, 2022, 10:59:09 AM11/8/22
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Ronald Toby

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Nov 8, 2022, 11:04:59 AM11/8/22
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Here are a few other resources that may help you.

Albert J. Koop & Hogitaro Inada. Japanese Names and How to Read Them: A Manual for Art Collec­tors and Students. (Floating World Editions, 2003. Reprint of 1923 origi­nal).

Tsunoda Bun’ei 角田文衛. Nihon no josei-mei: rekishi-teki tenbō 日本の女性名―歴史的展望 (Ko­ku­sho Kankōkai, 2006).

Jinmei jikai 人名字解. Shirakawa Shizuka 白川静 & Tsuzaki Yukihiro 津崎幸博, comp. (Heibonsha, 2006).

Jinmei yomikata jiten 人名読み方辞典 (2 vols., Nichigai Asoshiētsu, 1983).

奥富敬之『苗字と名前を知る事典』、東京堂出版 (2007)

P.G. O'Neill, Japanese Names: A Comprehensive Index by Characters and Readings, John Weatherhill, Inc., 1972.

Sachi Schmidt-Hori

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Nov 8, 2022, 11:09:12 AM11/8/22
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Hi Jon!

There is Tsunoda Bun’ei’s Nihon no joseimei. https://www.worldcat.org/title/71558333

 

I think -ko was a standard suffix for aristocratic women’s names even in ancient Japan. Most (all?) of the empresses from the Heian period onward have the -ko suffix but we customarily use onyomi to pronounce their names because we cannot determine which kunyomi they used (is 明子 Akiko or Akirakeiko?). But we don’t know the given names of most women because they were only used among close kin. Empresses and other female court officials are the exceptions (just out of necessity despite the irreverence of doing so). But in monogatari and historical documents, given names are hardly used for men (for instance, in the Tale of Genji, the only given names known to the reader are Koremitsu, Yoshikiyo, and Tokikata. If there are one or two more I have forgotten, I am sure they do not belong to very high-ranking men).

 

The practice of attaching the prefix o- to girl names supposedly born out of nyobo kotoba. But any of the O-XXX names are just nicknames/terms of endearment, I think (similar to calling you “Jonnie”). I was reading a novel written in and set in the Meiji era and one character was referred to as おみつ and 満子 by the narrator.

 

I hope this is useful…

 

Sachi ^^

Tomasz Majtczak

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Nov 8, 2022, 11:49:35 AM11/8/22
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Dear Jon,

for modern first names, mainly female ones, but not only, the articles by Ivona Barešová may be interesting and valuable:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ivona-Baresova

All the best
Tomasz Majtczak



Tomasz Majtczak
Wadowice / Kraków
====================================
When arguing with a stupid person, make sure that he isn't doing the same.


Jon Holt

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Nov 8, 2022, 12:02:35 PM11/8/22
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Sachi and all,
Thank you for all the info!  I have a lot of good stuff to look into!  
My thanks again!
Jon Holt


Mary Louise P. Nagata

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Nov 8, 2022, 3:04:07 PM11/8/22
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Hi,

Some years ago I published several articles on early modern Japanese naming practices.

As for the xx-ro names for men, the number could be birth order, but some have also suggested generation. One problem with the birth order thesis is that infant and child mortality were high, so it is nearly impossible to check whether this child was indeed the first or fourth or whatever order matches the number. In addition, most men changed their names several times during their lives and names that include numbers are also found in names taken later in life. 

Incidentally, the most common -ro name I have found is 次郎 which avoids most confusion over birth order.

From: pm...@googlegroups.com <pm...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Ronald Toby <rpt...@illinois.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, November 8, 2022 10:56:22 AM
To: Jon Holt <joh...@pdx.edu>; pm...@googlegroups.com <pm...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [PMJS] Personal names in -rō?
 
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Here are a few other resources that may help you.

Albert J. Koop & Hogitaro Inada. Japanese Names and How to Read Them: A Manual for Art Collec­tors and Students. (Floating World Editions, 2003. Reprint of 1923 origi­nal).

Tsunoda Bun’ei 角田文衛. Nihon no josei-mei: rekishi-teki tenbō 日本の女性名―歴史的展望 (Ko­ku­sho Kankōkai, 2006).

Jinmei jikai 人名字解. Shirakawa Shizuka 白川静 & Tsuzaki Yukihiro 津崎幸博, comp. (Heibonsha, 2006).

Jinmei yomikata jiten 人名読み方辞典 (2 vols., Nichigai Asoshiētsu, 1983).

奥富敬之『苗字と名前を知る事典』、東京堂出版 (2007)

P.G. O'Neill, Japanese Names: A Comprehensive Index by Characters and Readings, John Weatherhill, Inc., 1972.

On 11/8/2022 9:17 AM, Jon Holt wrote:

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walthall

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Nov 8, 2022, 3:20:29 PM11/8/22
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To Jon Holt and all,
In my book on Matsuo Taseko, I made some disparaging remarks about what
I considered to be the infantilizing "ko", and when it was translated
into Japanese, Nagano Hiroko got on my case about that, pointing out
that in Chinese, the character is pronounced "shi" or "tzu" that being
the suffix for the name Confucius and Mencius, not to mention all the
other ancient Chinese philosophers. I still think it's seen as
infantilizing in today's Japan and has pretty much stopped being used.
In fact it seems to me that it was only used for women's names from
Meiji to postwar, Taseko having been written just Tase in many Edo
period documents. As for "O", It's likely that it comes from nyobo
kotoba, but I read it more as a mark of respect than endearment.
a caveat. I know nothing about Heian period names.
Anne Walthall

On 2022-11-08 09:00, Jon Holt wrote:
> Sachi and all,
> Thank you for all the info! I have a lot of good stuff to look into!
>
> My thanks again!
> Jon Holt
>
> On Tue, Nov 8, 2022 at 8:09 AM Sachi Schmidt-Hori
> <Sachi.Sch...@dartmouth.edu> wrote:
>
>> Hi Jon!
>>
>> There is Tsunoda Bun’ei’s _Nihon no joseimei_.
>> https://www.worldcat.org/title/71558333 [1]
>>
>> I think -ko was a standard suffix for aristocratic women’s names
>> even in ancient Japan. Most (all?) of the empresses from the Heian
>> period onward have the -ko suffix but we customarily use onyomi to
>> pronounce their names because we cannot determine which kunyomi they
>> used (is 明子 Akiko or Akirakeiko?). But we don’t know the given
>> names of most women because they were only used among close kin.
>> Empresses and other female court officials are the exceptions (just
>> out of necessity despite the irreverence of doing so). But in
>> monogatari and historical documents, given names are hardly used for
>> men (for instance, in the _Tale of Genji_, the only given names
>> [2] as well as for your particular question (see page 43).
>>
>> Naming practices in premodern and/or traditional societies are so
>> different from what we (those of us living in modern societies) are
>> used to. So I would encourage you to look into the naming culture in
>> premodern Japan at large…. It’s quite interesting. Of course,
>> there are many more studies in the Japanese language.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Sachi
>>
>> From: pm...@googlegroups.com <pm...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of
>> Александр Запрягаев
>> Sent: Friday, October 28, 2022 7:44 AM
>> To: PMJS: Listserv <pm...@googlegroups.com>
>> Subject: [PMJS] Personal names in -rō?
>>
>> Everyone,
>>
>> I've been wondering and looking for possible references. Is there
>> any research about the principles in assigning _zokumyō/kemyō_
>> personal (male) names of the form "number + rō"? It seems that, at
>> least originally, they referred to birth order, as alot is being
>> made of Yoshitsune being called Kurō while actually being the ninth
>> son in the family. However, it doesn't look such a scheme was
>> maintained for long: Nobuyoshi, Ieyasu's fifth son, was Shichirō,
>> for example, and apparently there were several different people
>> named Gorō among Nobunaga's brothers, none of them the fifth. Has
>> there been any study of patterns or explicit explanations as to the
>> choice of numbers in the names of such kind?
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Alexander Zapryagaev
>>
>> --
>> PMJS is a forum dedicated to the study of premodern Japan.
>> To post to the list, email pm...@googlegroups.com
>> For the PMJS Terms of Use and more resources, please visit
>> www.pmjs.org [3].
>> Contact the moderation team at mod...@pmjs.org
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>>
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>> [4].
>>
>> --
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