|
Japanese ship naming conventions are different from those in the West. Japanese warships have never been named after people. Prior to World War II, Japanese ship naming conventions underwent several changes before being settled. == Merchant ships == The word is often attached to Japanese ship names. The first ship known to follow this convention was the ''Nippon Maru'', flagship of daimyo Toyotomi Hideyoshi's 16th century fleet. Several theories purport to explain this practice: *The most common is that ships were thought of as floating castles, and the word referred to the defensive "circles" or ''maru'' that protected the castle. *The suffix ''-maru'' is often applied to words representing something beloved, and sailors applied this suffix to their ships. *The term ''maru'' is used in divination and represents perfection or completeness, or the ship as "a small world of its own." *The myth of ''Hakudo Maru'', a celestial being that came to earth and taught humans how to build ships. It is said that the name ''maru'' is attached to a ship to secure celestial protection for itself as it travels. *For the past few centuries, only non-warships bore the ''-maru'' ending. Its use was intended as a good hope naming convention that would allow a ship to leave port, travel the world, and return safely to home port: hence the complete circle or "round trip" arriving back at its origin unhurt. *Note also that "Hinomaru", or "sun-disc", is a name often applied to the national flag of Japan. Today many commercial and private ships are still named using this convention. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Japanese ship-naming conventions」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|