(explosion noise)

______________

Another obscenely long post about shinki names. This one should be more interesting than Part 1 though. At least, I think it is.

______________

Shinki Names, Part 1 is mostly focused on how names are integrated into the magic system of Noragami. Part 2 is more about how they influence shinki’s lives.

Shinki names & hierarchy

The importance of names in shinki’s lives manifests in the fact that their social standing depends on different events happening to those names. So far we’ve seen four “classes” of shinki: sacred treasures (imperial regalia), hafuri (blessed vessels), regular shinki (divine instruments, regalia) and noras (strays). Let’s look at them closer.

Regular shinki (divine instruments, regalia)

The majority of shinki in the manga belong to the third group – they are “divine instruments” who get a name from a god and serve them. However, there are some outstanding cases even among regular shinki – those even get a second name, or a title, which they are known for among other shinki and even gods. Two really famous examples include: thunder god Takemikazuchi’s shinki Kiun called the Thunder Blade, and the shinki of the Emishi god Arahabaki, Shiigun (椎軍), who’s known as the Plague of Locusts. These shinki are strong mostly because of the form they take – a lightning dragon and an entire army of horsemen can cause a lot of trouble for any opponent. Yukine was also very strong even before becoming a hafuri – his ability to draw a borderline from the first try is notable, considering how a lot of shinki can’t do that even after some time:

I don’t really have anything else to add about regular shinki, so I’ll move to other groups.

I should probably add a disclaimer that I don’t know Japanese. I did spend a lot of time looking up all the kanji though and also consulted someone who does know some Japanese »»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»

A name is one the most important things a human can have. In ancient times, it was used to separate humans from nature, to guard them from evil spirits. Nowadays it’s more of a necessity, a primary part of one’s identity; a person without a name virtually doesn’t exist in the society.

In Noragami names, their meanings and functions are key elements of the magic universe created by Adachitoka. This two-parter is devoted to one of the name groups present in the manga – those belonging to shinki.

General rules of forming

Since shinki names are a part of Noragami’s magic system, there are certain rules for making them up. Many (if not most) of the readers of this post must already know those rules but I’ll list them just in case.

1. A shinki’s name is always (well, almost always, but we’ll get to that in Part 2) is written using a single kanji – a character that came into Japanese from Chinese. A kanji can have several meanings, one of which is chosen to be the name. The meaning’s two respective readings become two shinki names: kun-yomi, or Japanese native reading, refers to a shinki as a person while on-yomi, or Chinese sound reading, refers to their instrument name.

2. Even though shinki names are represented on their bodies by a single kanji, the kanji reading isn’t generally used as a name on its own. Another kanji is added to the kanji forming a shinki’s personal name to make yobina, which is the name a god uses when referring to their shinki in everyday life. Generally it’s a kanji that the gods use towards all of their shinki, i.e. their family/clan name. Here are examples of family names in Noragami:

音 – “ne”, Yato’s shinki’s family name. Means “sound”.

喩 – «yu», Tenjin’s shinki’s family name. Means “metaphor”.

大 – «dai», Kofuku’s shinki’s family name. Means “great”. The only prefix in this list.

麻 – «ma», Bishamon’s shinki’s former family name. Means “flax”.

巴 – «ha», Bishamon’s shinki’s current family name. See the meaning in the family names paragraph.

弥 – «mi», Ebisu’s shinki’s family name. When read as “mi” isn’t really a noun. One of the meanings is “more and more”.

云 – «un», Takemikazuchi’s shinki’s family name. Means “cloud”, “to talk”.

Known exceptions:

Noras: three out of four of Nora’s known names – Hiiro, Eyami, Mizuchi – do not include a family name (“chi” in “Mizuchi” isn’t actually a kanji for a family name, it’s part of kanji 螭’s reading). Tenjin also refused to give Kugaha the “yu” clan name when gave him the name “Saku”;

Sakura and Nana, who aren’t noras but still have no family names;

Daikoku and Daigo – their clan name is added to their instrument name, not their name as a person

3. The instrument name also isn’t used on its own: kanji “ki” 器 (“instrument”) is added to it. As seen in the manga, characters in Noragami prefer to use “name + ki” when talking about a shinki’s instrument form.

“Every time I reread noragami I actually skip those parts” - do you mean the translation notes? If so, I’d advise you NOT to do that - there’s way, way more interesting stuff written in them. I mean, sure, they sometimes get it wrong - like that time they tried to guess Hiiro’s name from her instrument name Hiki and went with Akane ‘cause Aka is the kun-yomi for Hi and -ne is Yato’s family name. It was a good and very logical guess that followed the name-forming rules precisely but was also incorrect;) But skipping them? Wouldn’t even think of that.

And since I’m reblogging this anyway, might as well vent out my thoughts about Father and the names he gives.I could have edited them into the original post but whatever, don’t want to, so let’s make it a separate note.

 So, “chi” is NOT a family name Father gives to his shinki. This has to be the biggest discovery I’ve made while working on Part 1. Now that I think about it, the Japanese audience or, in fact, anyone who reads Noragami in Japanese wouldn’t have made this assumption in the first place - they can actually see that it’s “Mizuchi” and “Edachi”, not “Mizu”+“Chi” and “Eda”+“Chi”. Back when chapter 84 was released everyone (including me) was like “but what Father’s gonna call Hagusa now? Haguchi? Hagusachi?. Well, it’s Hagusa, no “chi”’s there. Poor baby Yukine is denied even this fake-ass family name. 

I’ve also just assumed that Father has been naming his shinki (so far) with a kanji ending with “chi” to create an illusion of a family name, but what if he hasn’t? I mean, for all we know it’s just a coincidence that Mizuchi and Edachi both end with -chi. And all of his shinki are noras, too, which puts them into the “shinki who have no family name because they are noras” category. If he doesn’t give them a family name for the same reason as the gods, that’s pretty ironic - you’d think he’d specifically mock gods and their treatment of noras by giving them something that gods don’t, but no, he does exactly the same thing the gods do.

 But then you have Tenjin and his “yu” family name. While all of his shinki’s names end with the same -yu (”metaphor”), there’s also Tsuyu and a couple of very interesting notes about her.

I now wonder if Tenjin chose the “yu” name so that his shinki’s names would resemble Tsuyu’s, even if the kanji is different. Would Father even bother doing something like that for his shinki? 

I recreated it in Tomadachi Life 2