Japanese rebus monogram

The monogram is composed of two parts: one a Japanese character, most often kanji, but also katakana or hiragana;[lower-alpha 1] the other a simple symbol, such as a circle or square. The symbol is pronounced according to its name, and together (in either order, but generally symbol first) these form a Japanese name.

Japanese family names are generally two kanji characters, each usually of one or two morae – hence one or two hiragana or katakana if written that way – and thus can be represented as one symbol plus one kanji character, sometimes one hiragana or katakana. Only a few symbols are used, and thus only a few names can be written as a monogram this way.

A name may be represented by a symbol that does not correspond to it but is homophonous – further punning – which is aided by the large degree of homophony in Japanese. For example, kane (金, metal) in a name may be represented by the symbol ┐, though this actually corresponds to kane (矩, carpenter's square); or -en (園, ... garden) in a name may be represented by the symbol ○, though this actually corresponds to en (円, circle).

There are many variations on the basic design of rebus monograms – only one character from the name may be used, the pronunciation need not correspond to an actual name, other typographical symbols can be used (like 〆, shime),[2] two symbols (and no characters) may be used[2] – for example, Maruyama (円山) can be spelt as ○∧ – and unpronounceable or unpronounced symbols may also be incorporated decoratively.

For example, the Yamasa symbol was created as a modification of the boat emblem of the Kishū branch of the Tokugawa clan, which was composed as ∧ + キ, with the katakana character キ used for the ki in Kishū, and the ∧ being purely decorative. The Yamasa variant turned the キ character on its side and reinterpreted it as sa (サ); the resulting Yamasa reading does not correspond to an actual name (the family name is instead Hamaguchi), though it sounds like a family name and such a family name does exist (e.g., written in the form 山佐).

These readings are used for other symbols as well. Most commonly, a circled symbol is pronounced maru + (symbol reading), for "circle" (丸, maru); circling a symbol is common, dating to circular seals. A notable example is the tax inspection division (査察部, sasatsubu) of the National Tax Agency, which uses a circled sa (査) as their symbol. They are thus known colloquially as the Marusa, from maru + sa (〇査). This is notably present in the movie title A Taxing Woman (マルサの女, Marusa no onna). As katakana this would be written as ㋚; see Enclosed CJK Letters and Months for Unicode standard circled symbols.

A bottle of Kikkoman soy sauce

Rarer variants exist, like Kikkou man (亀甲萬, tortoise-shell 10,000) for Kikkoman soy sauce (tortoises are said to live for 10,000 years), which uses a hexagon to symbolize a tortoise shell (亀甲), with man (萬, 10,000) inside.

Only a handful of symbols are commonly used, though some have different readings; these are:[2][3]

There is no standard everyday Japanese term for rebus monograms. Rather, they are referred to by their use, such as "trade name" (商号, shōgō),[2] "store name" (屋号, yagō),[3] etc., or generically as "symbol" (標号, hyōgō), "symbol mark" (シンボルマーク, shimboru māku),[2] etc.

As designs and corporate symbols, rebus monograms date at least to the mid-17th century, and early on were featured on noren. They presumably come from the graphic tradition of the battlefield flags of the Warring States Period (Sengoku period, mid-15th to early 17th century), as seen in the simple clan name designs of Sashimono and Uma-jirushi. More broadly, these come from the same heraldic tradition as mon, where family emblems are pronounced according to the design, yielding the family name, as in Mitsu-ya ("three arrows"). While many mon feature kanji taken from the family name, the mon as a whole is not pronounceable as the full name.

During the Edo period, pictorial rebuses known as hanjimono (判じ物) were immensely popular, and involved similar wordplay; see Rebus#Japan. Today the most often seen of these pictorial symbols is a picture of a sickle, a circle, and the letter nu (ぬ), read as kama-wa-nu (鎌輪ぬ, sickle circle nu), interpreted as kamawanu (構わぬ), the old-fashioned form of kamawanai (構わない, "don't worry, doesn't matter"). This is known as the "kamawanu sign" (鎌輪奴文, kamawanu-mon), and dates to circa 1700,[4] being used in kabuki since circa 1815.[5][6]

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  Higashi-maru shouyu (ヒガシマル醤油, East Circle Soy Sauce), showing 東○
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  Mon of Tottori Prefecture; the symbol is meant to represent the hiragana to (と) and a bird (tori) to form a rebus of Tottori.

• Mon
• Canting arms, the Western equivalent for coat of arms
• Rebus § Japan