ABSTRACT
Before looking at the part played by numbers in Japanese names, it is essential to realise that the fact that such names are almost invariably written in kanji1 automatically attributes to them the meaning of their component characters.2 There are, however, so many deviant readings of kanji occurring in proper names, that special dictionaries are needed to list them.3 This means that any Japanese consulting a map, timetable or telephone directory will be at loss as to how many of the names occurring should be pronounced, even when the characters comprising them are themselves elementary. One reason for this is that names, or proper nouns often have spoken forms which, if not obsolete, are confined to this form of speech. If few people in England stop to think that Sutton means ‘south town’, its meaning, in any possible spoken variant, would be made clear to a Japanese by the kanji comprising its written form,4 and this is a comparatively simple case. True, in such transparent cases as Redhill, an Englishman will not think of a red hill, and nor will a Japanese, hearing the name Hiroshima, think of a wide island. None the less, the written form of Hiroshima, , will remind a Japanese of this meaning in a way without any equivalent in western languages. In relation to numerals, the point is extremely important, since any advanced culture tends to conceive of numerals as being preeminently within the domain of visible language.5
