employed indiscriminately as equivalents of the European Christian name. If a man keeps No. 3, he drops No. 4, and vice versâ.
5. The yomyō, or "infant name." Formerly all boys had a temporary name of this sort, which was only dropped, and the jitsumyō assumed, at the age of fifteen. Thus the child might have been Tarō or Kikunosuke, while the young man became Hajime or Tamotsu. The classes of names next to be mentioned, though all existing in full force, are less important than the preceding classes.
6. The azana, translated "nickname" for want of a better equivalent. Such are Mokei, Bunrin, Solan, Shisei. Chinese scholars specially affect these, which are not vulgar, like our nicknames, but on the contrary, highly elegant.
7. The gō. "Pseudonym" is the nearest English equivalent, but almost every Japanese of a literary or artistic bent has one. Indeed he may have several. Some of the Japanese names most familiar to foreign ears are merely such pseudonyms assumed and dropped at will, for instance, Hokusai (who had half-a-dozen others), Ōkyo, and Bakin. Authors and painters are in the habit of giving fanciful names to their residences, and then they themselves are called after their residences, as Bashō-an ("banana hermitage"), Suzunoya-no-Aruji ("master of the house with a bell"). Such names often end in dōjin, sanjin, koji, okina, that is, "hermit," "mountaineer," "retired scholar," "aged man."
8. The haimyō and gagō. These are but varieties of the go, adopted by comic poets and by painters.
9. The geimyō, "artistic name," adopted by singing and dancing-girls, actors, story-tellers, and other professional entertainers of the public. Thus, Ichikawa Danjurō was not the real name, but only the hereditary "artistic name," of the most celebrated of modern Japanese actors. To his friends in private life, he was Mr. Horikoshi Shū (Horikoshi being the myōji, No. 2; Shū the jitsumyō, No. 4).
10. The okuri-na, or posthumous honorific appellation of exalted personages. These are the names by which all the Mikados are known to history,—names which they never bore during their lifetime. Jimmu Tennō and Jingō Kōgō are examples.
