Names
Because of his low birth with no family name to the eventual achievement of Kanpaku (Regent), the title of highest imperial nobility, Toyotomi Hideyoshi had quite a few names throughout his life. At birth, he was given the name Hiyoshi-maru 日吉丸. At genpuku he took the name Kinoshita Tōkichirō (木下 藤吉郎?). Later, he was given the surname Hashiba, and the honorary court office Chikuzen no Kami; as a result he was styled Hashiba Chikuzen no Kami Hideyoshi (羽柴筑前守秀吉?). His surname remained Hashiba even as he was granted the new uji or sei (氏 or 姓, clan name) Toyotomi by the emperor. His name is correctly Toyotomi no Hideyoshi. Using the writing system of his time, his name is written as 豐臣 秀吉.
The Toyotomi uji was simultaneously granted to a number of Hideyoshi's chosen allies, who adopted the new uji "豊臣朝臣" (Toyotomi no asomi, courtier of Toyotomi).
The Catholic sources of the time referred to him as "emperor Taicosama" (from taikō, a retired kampaku (see Sesshō and Kampaku), and the honorific sama).
His nickname was "Monkey" (Saru), allegedly given by Oda Nobunaga because of his facial resemblance to a monkey. This recognition directly contributed to the popular image of Toyotomi Hideyoshi being a monkey styled person, both in appearance and mode of behaviour.
Read more about this topic: Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Famous quotes containing the word names:
“And even my sense of identity was wrapped in a namelessness often hard to penetrate, as we have just seen I think. And so on for all the other things which made merry with my senses. Yes, even then, when already all was fading, waves and particles, there could be no things but nameless things, no names but thingless names. I say that now, but after all what do I know now about then, now when the icy words hail down upon me, the icy meanings, and the world dies too, foully named.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)
“The instincts of merry England lingered on here with exceptional vitality, and the symbolic customs which tradition has attached to each season of the year were yet a reality on Egdon. Indeed, the impulses of all such outlandish hamlets are pagan still: in these spots homage to nature, self-adoration, frantic gaieties, fragments of Teutonic rites to divinities whose names are forgotten, seem in some way or other to have survived mediaeval doctrine.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words.... The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)