Jones Beene <[email protected]> wrote: Attention water-heads (“Mizuno” literally means 'From Water') >
It means water field (水野) The second character is "field" or "plain." Iwamura (岩村) means rock + village. Dr. Rockville. Most Japanese personal names are descriptions of places. Many English names describe an occupation or trade, such as Smith, Sawyer or Fletcher. My name is Middle English for red + well, a place name. Among other places it is a market town granted a Royal Charter in 1204. http://www.rothwelltown.co.uk/ "Beene" is probably the legume. The other day I mixed up the names Yoshino and Yoshida. They are similar: 吉野 and 吉田. The second character "da" or "ta" means rice paddy, another kind of field. It is also the "ta" in Toyota: 豊田. Toyo*ta* Motors was started by Toyo*da* family. These are same two characters pronounced differently. "ta" is more common with "toyo." I guess they got tired of telling people "the name is 'da' not 'ta.'" - Jed
