What’s the significance of the suffix word “maru” in Japanese ship names? Ksbyashi Maru, Nissei Maru, etc?
I’m fairly sure “maru” just means “boat” or “ship.” Can someone confirm?
Actually, it means “circle.” I was just reading up about this on Wikipedia, which says:
Ah. My mistake, then.
Nothing much to add here, other than the use of ‘maru’ for ships can actually be dated back to 1187, well before Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
Celestial protection, eh? Small wonder that a young James T. Kirk had to cheat in order to beat it. 
:smack: I meant to clarify that the “it” was the *Kobayashi Maru * officer training test, that is.
You didn’t need to. We all got it.
Back when I was sinking Japanese ships (in the classic computer game Gato), I always wondered why every ship was Maru this and Maru that.
“Gato” rocked, dude.
I have to disagree with this; I just looked at a couple of Japanese dictionaries and several web sites, and only that second meaning is mentioned.
The word comes from maro (麻呂), which was originally a first-person pronoun but later became a suffix used on people’s names, especially beloved children, and later used on precious posessions (swords, musical instruments, pets). It seems very natural that ships got the same suffix.
Could you elaborate?
Google™ cache of Lloyd’s Register page discussing meaning of “maru” (The original seems to be gone. Scroll down to get to the text.)
Sure. According to the Museum of Maritime Science in Tokyo, there are references in documents dating from 1187 found at the Ninna-ji in Kyoto of a ship named the Bando-maru ( 坂東丸 ), and that is said to have been the first use of maru in a ship’s name.
BTW, the site makes brief mention of the castle theory, but spends most of its time describing the maro theory.