Constructing a Japanese name

[fleurtyherald]

Any Japanese name heralds here? I'm looking for documentation for a client requesting Katashi Ito.

Ito^ (surname/myoji) Katashi (given name/nanori). I have found Ito^ as a period surname in a St. Gabriel article. I've found the prefix "Kata" for the given name in a linked article on Japanese names...where can I find more suffixes for the given name (if that's possible/correct)? Or a list of more given names....or a place that rules out Katashi as a male given name?

Help

[Ishida Kentarou Mitsumasa]

The book you want to look at is Name Construction in Medieval Japan, but you may have known that already. It's the one Japanese name book that is on the list of "please don't send copies, we have that" books.

"Katashi" is a very modern-sounding male name to me, so much that I am pretty suspicious of it being documentable. Three-syllable personal names among noblemen are fairly uncommon in all the documentation I have seen. The majority of them are four-syllable names that use two kanji, each of which provide two syllables. Think Hideyoshi, Nobunaga, Ieyasu, Mitsunari, and so on.

[solveig]

Noble Cousin!

Greetings from Solveig! The basic name structure for a male member of the military class is as follows: <family name><yobina><nanori> That's right, three names.

• The family name is most typically a locative. Itou (Itō or Itoh) [note all that fussyness about the O sound is that it is supposed to be held for two beats instead of just one beat] is a sort of cadet family of the Fujiwara (at least that is what the name claims. There are several families of this sort the Katou, Saitou, Satou, &c.). Note. There are some very rare modern Japanese names which are just Ito (note the short o), but I doubt that we can document any of them to period. (Ref. homepage1.nifty.com/forty-sixer/i5.html) By way of comparison there are about 1.1 million people whose family names is 伊藤 (Itou) while there are only 470 people with the name 糸 (Ito). (Note. there are several other lower frequency names which are read as Ito.) Regardless, 伊藤 Itou appears on page 163 of NCMJ Rev. Ed. and dates to the Sengoku period.
  
• The yobina is most typically a birth order name such as Tarou (#1 son), Jirou (#2 son), Saburou (#3 son) &c. This can be prefixed either: by a reference to an uji (the ancient clans not the "clans" of the sengoku period), an auspicious prefix, or by a birth ranking (e.g., Saburoutarou is a documentable name).
  
• The nanori is a sort of official name which mimics Chinese official names but with kunyomi (native Japanese readings) for the kanji (Chinese letters) involved. As already noted, these kunyomi readings are typicalliy disyllabic which typically results in a four syllable name. There are some trisyllabic nanori readings so you might encounter some single kanji nanori with three syllables.
  

Note. There are some kanji which have low frequency readings as Katashi out there. (Ref. coreblog.org/naming/kanji/k_304b305f3057.html) I am thinking that our best approach is to treat Katashi as a nickname and use one of the kanji with katashi as an alternate reading as one of the two kanji in the nanori. That is, the resulting nanori would not actually have the sound katashi in it, but katashi would be a reasonably appropriate nickname based on the nanori. So for example, Munesuke 宗介 dates to the Kamakura period and appears on page 263 of NCMJ Rev. Ed. The second kanji can be read as katashi. A better choice might be Takashige 高重 which also dates to the Kamakura period and appears on page 302 of NCMJ Rev. Ed. In general there are a LOT of 重 shige names which appear on pages 301-302 and so it presents a lot more options than does 介 suke.

I hope that this helps get us started.

[Shimazu Nobuhisa]

Greetings!

I'm also working on my Japanese Persona right now and have a question about my Persona's formal name.

For the family name, I've chosen a branch of the Shimazu (島津) clan from Izumi in Satsuma Provice (Modern Kagoshima Prefecture) called the Sasshu (薩州). For the given name I am choosing Nobuhisa (信久). Many of the Shimazu of this period have -hisa in the name.

The most famous member of the Sasshu of this period (Late 1500's), Sasshu Yoshitora (薩州義虎) at various times used both Sasshu and Shimazu as a surname.

What would the formal name of my persona given the time period be? Something like Sasshu Nobuhisa no Shimazu (薩州信久の島津)? Or would I register both Sasshu Nobuhisa and Shimazu Nobuhisa and choose based on the situation? Or maybe 薩州家島津信久 Sasshu-ke Shimazu Nobuhisa?

Thanks in advance.

[tanuki]

Shugyo, first off, let me say I am in no way a Japanese name expert, I'm actually the exact opposite and have already caused some (hopefully minor) headaches with some heralds. ;D

Beyond that, I'm still in the process of developing my name and I'm curious where you went for the resources you've already found?

[Shimazu Nobuhisa]

Hi Tanuki,

My process was:

1) Find a clan or family that my persona would belong to or owe fealty to.

I decided to go with a family loyal to the Shimazu clan as they would have most likely had the most contact with Europeans. It gives my persona a good excuse for being in the Knowne World. Tanegashima island where first Contact with the Portuguese occurred in Shimazu controlled Satsuma province.

2) Look up important members of that family and their vassals from the time period I chose.

This was a matter of Googling Shimazu family member and retainers/vassals. The Shimazu family has existed as an unbroken line ruling Satsuma from the late 1100's through the late 1800's and the family is still very prominent in southern Japan today, so there was a lot of information to draw from.

One of the better sites I found for research was www.samurai-archives.com/ but even Wikipedia in English has a detailed page for the Shimazu with a list of important retainers.

The Samurai Archives site is very good. They also give all names in Kanji, so if you want to attempt a search on Japanese sites you can.

3) Look for recurring elements of given names in the family.

Most families in Japan repeat portions of given names, and many retainers seem to name their children after prominent members of the the family they serve. For example (from Samurai Archives):

Shimazu Iehisa
Shimazu Katsuhisa
Shimazu Sanehisa
Shimazu Tadahisa
Shimazu Takahisa
Shimazu Takehisa
Shimazu Teruhisa
Shimazu Toshihisa

I chose to go with Nobu-hisa. Both parts of the name can be found in the Nanori section of Effingham's Names site:

www.sengokudaimyo.com/miscellany/names.html

4) Flesh it out by researching clan and location history for the chosen time period.

While researching some of the famous Shimazu of the time period I chose (Late 1500's) I came across the interesting story of Shimazu Sanehisa from the Sasshu branch of the family who attempted to take control of the clan. The Sasshu later capitulated to Shimazu Takahisa and became loyal retainers. I decided to have Nobuhisa from the Sasshu branch. I liked the idea of the underlying tension between the Sasshu and the main Shimazu branch. I thought that perhaps if Nobuhisa become strong enough one day he would attempt to finish what Sanehisa had started... OR just continue to be a loyal and capable retainer of the clan

5) Other resources:

I found some good info in books by Stephen Turnbull. One in particular is about the Shimazu invasion of Ryukyu (Okinawa) in 1609 and gives some history on the Shimazu clan.

Once you have the Kanji for names of people and places you can copy and paste them directly into searches. You will have to somehow translate the results which can be a challenge. I did get some interesting results from doing image searches with the kanji I found too.

About Google Translate, using names in translate is a pain in the butt. It will give you the literal translation of the name or sometimes throw in Chinese words in the translation. One of the names I was researching kept coming up as "Italian Writer Shimazu" very annoying. Sometimes you can get better translations by separating groups of characters onto different lines.

[solveig]

Noble Cousin!

Greetings from Solveig!

For the family name, I've chosen a branch of the Shimazu (島津) clan from Izumi in Satsuma Provice (Modern Kagoshima Prefecture) called the Sasshu (薩州). For the given name I am choosing Nobuhisa (信久). Many of the Shimazu of this period have -hisa in the name.

Sasshu is most likely a nickname for the province and not actually a family name. Regardless, there do not appear to be any people with Sasshu for a family name in Japan. Ref: homepage1.nifty.com/forty-sixer/sa4.html

What would the formal name of my persona given the time period be? Something like Sasshu Nobuhisa no Shimazu

No. Shimazu is a toponymic name and your "no" would be claiming that somebody named Nobuhisa owned, modified, or possessed Shimazu. Currently, there are 23,000 people with the family name 島津 Shimazu.

Or would I register both Sasshu Nobuhisa and Shimazu Nobuhisa and choose based on the situation?

I don't recommend that. What you should consider doing is picking something like: Shimazu <yobina> Nobuhisa. The <yobina> is a common use name and it is where you get to slot in a variety of titles and what naught. However, note that the College of Arms will not register presumptive names (names where you claim ownership to stuff that you don't own and stuff like that). Regardless, <yobina> are most typically numerical birth order names such as Tarou, Jirou, Saburou, &c often with some sort of prefix either reflecting a virtue or better attested affiliation with one of the ancient "uji" such as the Minamoto. These prefixes typically take sino-japanese readings such as GEN in the case of the Minamoto.

Or maybe 薩州家島津信久 Sasshu-ke Shimazu Nobuhisa?

-ke will show up in history books and what naught, but it is not acutally part of the name. For example, the Taira are often referred to as the Heike, but their family name was still Taira not Hei-ke. Why HEI? Because, HEI is the sino-japanese reading for Taira. The Minamoto are referred to as the Genji (ji is short for uji)

Regardless. You are most of the way there with Shimazu Nobuhisa.

[tanuki]

Shugyo-dono,

thank you for outlining your techniques. I, too, am a fan of the Samurai-archives, and it's nice to see someone else doing very similar things to what I am trying to accomplish. It's just with so much information out there, (and on the internet, most of it false) it's easy to get lost. Thanks again for the help, I really appreciate it.

[Shimazu Nobuhisa]

Thank you so much for your help Solveig-dono.

After looking through my sources again it does appear that for official things members of this branch indeed were referred to as Shimazu. For name registration then that is the way to go.

I'll definitely start exploring the yobina more too. It looks like it will be something like Genjiro (原二郎) from a cursory glance at the info.

And Tanuki-dono I'm glad you found what I said useful. coming up with a persona is fun but is a little daunting considering all the "rules" and possibilities.