Color-Names

O-Ai "Indigo." O-Aka "Red." O-Iro "Color." O-Kon "Deep Blue." O-Kuro "Dark,"--lit., "Black." Midori "Green." Murasaki "Purple."

Midori and Murasaki, especially the latter, should properly be classed with aristocratic yobina; and both are very rare. I could find neither in the collection of aristocratic names which was made for me from the records of the Peeresses' School; but I discovered a "Midori" in a list of middle-class names. Color-names being remarkably few among yobina, I thought it better in this instance to group the whole of them together, independently of class-distinctions.

O-Shiro "White."

The following and final group of female names contains several queer puzzles. Japanese girls are sometimes named after the family crest; and heraldry might explain one or two of these yobina. But why a girl should be called a ship, I am not sure of being able to guess. Perhaps some reader may be reminded of Nietzsche's "Little Brig called Angeline":--

"Angeline--they call me so-- Now a ship, one time a maid, (Ah, and evermore a maid!) Love the steersman, to and fro, Turns the wheel so finely made."

But such a fancy would not enter into a Japanese mind. I find, however, in a list of family crests, two varieties of design representing a ship, twenty representing an arrow, and two representing a bow.