I’m continuing my “fact from fiction” series today with a look at samurai naming conventions and why they caused me a little trouble in CLAWS OF THE CAT. Most samurai received and used several names in the course of a lifetime. The childhood name was given at birth and used until the samurai completed his genpuku, the coming-of-age ceremony during which a samurai male received his swords and his adult name. In addition, samurai children often answered to various nicknames, either personal (like the ones we use for our children now) or numeric and based on the child’s age and
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Do You Know About Genpuku?
Genpuku is (or, more properly, was) a traditional Japanese coming-of-age ceremony for male members of the samurai class. The timing of the ceremony varied, at the discretion of a samurai boy’s father or the male relative in charge of his training, but it typically took place when a boy was between the ages of 12 and 17. When a samurai youth had attained the requisite skills and maturity to accept the responsibilities of adulthood, he was taken to the shrine of his family’s patron kami (a Japanese term for gods or divinities) where the ceremony was performed. After genpuku, a boy
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