80070090

open access

Version of Record

ニホン ノ ジュウダイ トシメイ - ユライ ト シテキ ハイケイ

Names of the Ten Biggest Cities in Japan - Their Origins and Historical Backgrounds

Japanese (日本語)

神戸大学医療技術短期大学部紀要

4

195-206

神戸大学医療技術短期大学部

1988

2007-11-21

Although the ranking of cities and towns has been statistically re¬corded for the past 65 years in terms of population, it is interesting to note that it was only in 1975 that all the ten biggest cities came to have over one million. Since then their rankings have changed dramatically, but the names of their cities themselves remain unchanged. This paper deals with the names of the ten biggest cities with special reference to their origins and historical backgrounds, classifying them into two language categories, i.e., Japanese and Ainu. The names of nine cities out of ten are derived from Japa¬nese and only 'Sapporo' comes from Ainu. As the sub-division according to the fea¬tures of these places, they can be further classified into two groups; descriptive place-names and those representing functional characters of the places. Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Kita-Kyushu, Kawasaki, and Sapporo belong to the former, while Kyoto and Kobe to the latter. Regarding the primary meanings of these names, however, there seem to be no authorita¬tive theories except regarding those of Tokyo and Kita-Kyushu. These two names are comparatively new from a historical viewpoint and their original meanings are quite clear. The obscurity of primary meanings of the remaining eight names suggests that there are a host of important place-names in Japan which call for scholars' scientific attention in the future.

紀要論文