View Message

[Facts] A question about female Japanese names
I recently finished a lovely book about old Japanese horror tales and noticed that practically all the female characters had the letter O attached in front of their names (as in O-Yuki, O-Taka, O-Sono...). Can anyone tell me what the use of the "O" is for, and what it means? I was thinking it stood for "Miss" or something - am I right? Also, even though I haven't exactly studied Japanese culture, I've never the O being used in front of feminine Japanese names before. The book I read was written in the early 20th century, and most of the stories in it were set in the 1800's (or earlier), so is this an old title which isn't used anymore, or is it just that I haven't paid attention to it before?
vote up1vote down

Replies

According to this linguistic text at
http://people.umass.edu/jjmccart/handbook.pdf
that mentions O-Yuki somewhere in the middle this is one of several patterns how female nicknames were "built":Yukiko was turned into a nickname O-Yuki
Midori became O-Mido
etc.
Rene     www.AboutNames.ch
vote up1vote down
Thanks!
vote up1vote down