MARU What does it mean?

[Gepetto]

What does "Maru" mean? It ends a lot of names in anime (particurlarly Naruto: Konohamaru, Orochimaru, Shikamaru, Akamaru...)

[Otohiko]

It's a name ending.

I think it would generally mean something like 'round'

Depends on how the name is actually written, but here's the breakdown of two kanji in 'Akamaru'

http://dict.regex.info/cgi-bin/j-e/fg=r ... =4056|345d

Go figure

[bum]

What does "Maru" mean? It ends a lot of names in anime (particurlarly Naruto: Konohamaru, Orochimaru, Shikamaru, Akamaru...)

hmmm

[Gepetto]

readings: GAN, maru, maru.meru, maru.i, ma, wa, wani
English tags: `round', `full', `month', `perfection', `-ship', `pills', `make round', `roll up', `curl up', `seduce', `explain away'

wow. How can the same word mean "round" AND "seduce"??? Strange language, but I love it!
ThaNKS.

[Savia]

It's often used in anime to make a male name whilst identifying a strong like with a word or concept. Note that in the examples you gave:

Orochimaru- orochi carries serpentine connotations, oddly enough

Akamaru- aka is 'red' just like akamaru on food pills

Konohamaru- obviously, konoha as in the village

There are plenty more of these. Another similarly used ending is -suke, as seen with the father/son pair from the Jubei-chan series, Koinosuke and Ayunosuke, whom are named for two types of fish.

[Otohiko]

I think the meanings change depending on combinations, thus the weird variety of them.

Most Japanese names tend to consist of two characters, and there's a few more or less common last characters, '-maru' being one of them I guess. An even more common one for male names is '-hiko' (like in 'Otohiko' ), or the uber-common '-ko' for female names.

Actually, I find Japanese names easier to memorize than others, thanks to that clearcut structure and a certain amount of definite meaning in every name

[AMVfreak]

I think the meanings change depending on combinations, thus the weird variety of them.

Most Japanese names tend to consist of two characters, and there's a few more or less common last characters, '-maru' being one of them I guess. An even more common one for male names is '-hiko' (like in 'Otohiko' ), or the uber-common '-ko' for female names.

Yep exactly. The meaning and how you pronounce that word changes depending on the other words combined with it.

Other common endings for male names are like -rou or -hei

[Otohiko]

As are -ta, -to, -ro, -taro, -jiro, -ki, and a few others...

And I'm convinced at least 80% of all Japanese female names end with -ko or -mi, at least in real life

[danielwang]

As are -ta, -to, -ro, -taro, -jiro, -ki, and a few others...

And I'm convinced at least 80% of all Japanese female names end with -ko or -mi, at least in real life

The truth about Japanese names which nobody's supposed to know. but I got leaked it when I heard people accidentally talking about it at the Sainsbury's. It's those are the checksum characters for a algorithmic naming system used for centuries. It's not just a pattern it's the biggest conspiracy since the De Vinchi secret codes and everything!

Really. First off, the names Taro, Jiro and Saburo were somewhat of a archaic naming convention (seen in a Kurodawa film) used for what you may call nicknames.

The fact that names end in specific character deals much with the word form contruct. Just as in English where many word endings, beginning and common parts tell us the difference between noun and verb; in Japanese, names have a specific origin and a look at the kanji (a legacy release of Chinese, deprecated) shows this. You would not expect very many Caucasian/English name to eng with "ing" "ish" "ed" "ry" "ny" et al, would you?

The ending of -maru is common ships, and with -chiyo (oldver for 1000, also used as forever) they are used for nicknames used in childhood.

The one I have is "Raidenmaru" [base: thunder]. I never had the opportunity to borrow characters for my name of "Wang Daniel", and it also would have been uncommon for me to recieve fragments, alas. It DOES occur that parents sometimes ask a friend or another person to help name their child, and sometimes they borrow or recieve a first or middle name from a relative or friend.