Japanese Female Names 139 



O-Momo . .'. . " Peach," the fruit. 1 



O-Nara .... "Oak." 



O-Rjnl " Willow.", 



Sanat " Sprouting-Rice." 



O-Sane " Fruit-seed." 



O-Shino . . . . " Slender Bamboo." 



O-Suge "Reed." 3 



O-Sugi "Cedar." 8 



O-Take .... "Bamboo." 



O-Tsuta .... "Ivy."* 



O-YaS "Double-Blossom." 6 



O-Yone .... " Rice-in-grain." 



Wakana. .... " Young Na" 6 



Names signifying light or color seem to us the 

 most aesthetic of all yobina ; and they probably 

 seem so to the Japanese. Nevertheless the rela 

 tive purport even of these names cannot be di 

 vined at sight. Colors have moral and other 

 values in the old nature-philosophy; and an 

 appellation that to the Western mind suggests 

 only luminosity or beauty may actually refer 



1 Yet this name may possibly have been written with the wrong 

 character. There is another yobina, " Momo " signifying " hundred," 

 as in the phrase momoyo, " for a hundred ages." 



2 Scirpus maritimus. 



8 Cryptomtria Japonica. 



* Cissus Tbunbergii. 



6 A flower-name certainly ; but the_ya here is probably an abbrevi 

 ation of jrae-^akura, the double-flower of a particular species of cherry- 

 tree. 



Brastica chinensis. 



