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Post by Kyle Smith on Jan 16, 2014 2:22:56 GMT -5
Salutations,
After talking over a name for a Japanese persona with an acquaintance, I was advised to post here on the Tousando forums looking for commentary. I am hoping to receive input on the authenticity of the name. I am looking at Hosokawa Masahiro. No famous samurai, real life famous personalities, or well known fictional characters appear to possess this name. A brief websearch shows the Hosokawa clan dates back to the 1300s and the given name, Masahiro, was shared with Ouchi Masahiro (1446-1495). Is this an acceptable name for SCA?
Thank you for your time.
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Post by solveig on Jan 16, 2014 12:41:55 GMT -5
Salutations, After talking over a name for a Japanese persona with an acquaintance, I was advised to post here on the Tousando forums looking for commentary. I am hoping to receive input on the authenticity of the name. I am looking at Hosokawa Masahiro. No famous samurai, real life famous personalities, or well known fictional characters appear to possess this name. A brief websearch shows the Hosokawa clan dates back to the 1300s and the given name, Masahiro, was shared with Ouchi Masahiro (1446-1495). Is this an acceptable name for SCA? Thank you for your time. Noble Cousin! Greetings from Solveig! Your proposed name is probably acceptable as long as someone else hasn't already grabbed it. I just checked the CoA armorial and it looks like there are no Hosokawa registered so the name should be clear. You will need to date the name in order to register it with the College of Arms. The College of Arms does not accept WIkipedia entries as documentation and last I heard was not accepting Anthony Bryant's web page as documentation either. The two components that you have can be documented as follows: Howokawa 細川 is a family name dated to 1392 on page 318 of NCMJ Rev Ed. Masahiro 政弘 is a nanori dated to 1568 on page 340 of NCMJ Rev Ed. Note that NCMJ is on the CoA no-photocopy list so you do not have to include photocopies of NCMJ pages when documenting your name for the College of Arms. All you have to do to document the components is include the lines above. You also probably need to document the name pattern which can also be accomplished by a page reference from NCMJ. Two more things: 1. You should really have a zokumyou in addition to a nanori. This reflects actual period practice. Zokumyou most often reflect birth order and possibly a reference to the 氏 uji (clan) to which the individual claims membership. Uji are such things as the Minamoto, Taira, &c. The uji were established or at least recognized by the emperor. For example: 源太郎 Gentarou is a first born son affiliated with the Minamoto. Note that GEN is the onyomi (Chinese style reading) of 源 while minamoto is the kunyomi (native Japanese style reading). The basic pattern is: <family name><zokumyou><nanori>. So you could for example be 細川源太郎政弘 Hosokawa Gentarou Masahiro. 2. Hosokawa is NOT an uji (clan) it is a family. There is a LOT of confusion about this. Note that OU in Gentarou is a way of writing a long (double length) O. It directly reflects how the double length O in 源太郎 is written phonetically げんたろう in Japanese. There are other conventions. Sometimes the O is followed by an H such as when 佐藤 is written Satoh. The Hepburn system represents double length vowels other than I (which is always doubled) by placing a macron over the vowel. Currently, the College of Arms will allow people to completely ignore whether a vowel is double length when registering Japanese names. This is poor practice as 大川 Oogawa (this time the long O is represented by a double O as the name is written that way in Japanese) and 小川 Ogawa are rather different names. 大川 means big river while 小川 means small river. Incidentally, these are both real Japanese names and they do not sound the same to Japanese even though they may sound the same to English speakers. |
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Post by Abe Akirakeiko on Jan 24, 2014 12:24:35 GMT -5
Nothing really to add to what Solveig-hime wrote above - just wanted to mention that "Hosokawa Masahiro" sounds quite "right" to me.
The relationships between families and the uji they claim affiliation to (in some form or another) is always interesting, especially when it comes to putting together names, given the usage of certain "common" characters in zokumyou like Solveig-hime mentions above. Since the Hosokawa family was affiliated with/descended from the Seiwa Genji, including the "GEN" character in your zokumyou would certainly be appropriate.
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Post by Kyle Smith on Sept 30, 2015 23:52:50 GMT -5
While this reply is sorely out of date, I finally am in a position to properly engage with the SCA. Thank you.
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