Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/278

 nomenclature. The fashion of the nanori (self-given name) was thus inaugurated. A few years previously, another sovereign (Kwammu, 782-806) caused an eminent scholar to assign posthumous names to the former occupants of the Throne, and the result was that the Rulers of Japan came to be known in history by names of which many were borrowed from the annals of China or Tartary, and none was borne during his lifetime by the sovereign thus designated. In mediæval times, strange confusion was caused by extending the old methods of nomenclature without regard to the motives that had governed them. It thus fell out that many of the official titles which had been prefixed to personal names in the early ages and used in lieu of patronyms, took permanent place in the language as family appellations, and were employed without the slightest discrimination as to their fitness. To this abuse was due the common adoption of such names as Otomo (Great subject), Okura (Imperial treasury), Inukai (Master of hounds), Hatori (Weaver), and so on. A still more indiscriminate extension of this habit is attributable to the levelling of time-honoured social distinctions that took place during the military epoch, when soldiers ruled the country and provincial captains supplanted the Court nobles in the metropolis. The old official titles then began to do duty as personal names, so that (to convert the facts into their English equivalents) the sons of private soldiers received baptismal names such as "Lord Chamberlain" or "Commodore"; the child of a farmer might be dubbed "Prince" or "Lord Chamberlain," and a courtesan or danseuse went by the name of "High Prelate" or "Field Marshal," even differences of sex being lost sight of in the general confusion. Another method of naming was inaugurated in very early times: the sovereign bestowed a patronym, much as titles were given in the West. In constructing such a name, the feat that it commemorated was translated into symbolical language—as when a great archer was called "noble target,"—or some natural object of special beauty or grandeur was taken, or else a part of the donor's name was joined to a part of the recipient's. The greatest family that Japan ever possessed—the Fujiwara (wistaria plain)—had the honour of obtaining its designation from an Emperor. There are only 292 family names in Japan, 