_O-Ai_ "Indigo."
_O-Aka_ "Red."
_O-Iro_ "Color."
_O-Kon_ "Deep Blue."
_O-Kuro_ "Dark,"--lit., "Black."
_Midori_[83] "Green."
_Murasaki_[83] "Purple."
[83] _Midori_ and _Murasaki_, especially the latter,
should properly be classed with aristocratic _yobina_;
and both are very rare. I could find neither in the
collection of aristocratic names which was made for me
from the records of the Peeresses' School; but I
discovered a "Midori" in a list of middle-class names.
Color-names being remarkably few among _yobina_, I
thought it better in this instance to group the whole of
them together, independently of class-distinctions.
_O-Shiro_ "White."
The following and final group of female names contains several queer
puzzles. Japanese girls are sometimes named after the family crest; and
heraldry might explain one or two of these _yobina_. But why a girl
should be called a ship, I am not sure of being able to guess. Perhaps
some reader may be reminded of Nietzsche's "Little Brig called
Angeline":--
"Angeline--they call me so--
Now a ship, one time a maid,
(Ah, and evermore a maid!)
Love the steersman, to and fro,
Turns the wheel so finely made."
But such a fancy would not enter into a Japanese mind. I find, however,
in a list of family crests, two varieties of design representing a ship,
twenty representing an arrow, and two representing a bow.