By the
Heian period, a variety of different characters had been used to represent the name Nara: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and . A number of theories for the origin of the name "Nara" have been proposed, and some of the better-known ones are listed here. The second theory in the list, from the notable folklorist
Kunio Yanagita (1875–1962), is most widely accepted at present. • The (
The Chronicles of Japan, the second oldest book of classical Japanese history) suggests that "Nara" was derived from
narasu (to flatten, to level). According to this account, in September in the tenth year of
Emperor Sujin, "leading selected soldiers (the rebels) went forward, climbed Nara-yama (hills lying to the north of
Heijō-kyō) and put them in order. Now the imperial forces gathered and flattened trees and plants. Therefore the mountain is called Nara-yama." Though the narrative itself is regarded as a folk etymology and few researchers regard it as historical, this is the oldest surviving suggestion, and is linguistically similar to the following theory by Yanagita. • "Flat land" theory (currently most widely accepted): In his 1936 study of placenames, the author
Kunio Yanagita states that "the topographical feature of an area of relatively gentle gradient on the side of a mountain, which is called
taira in eastern Japan and
hae in the south of
Kyushu, is called
naru in the
Chūgoku region and
Shikoku (central Japan). This word gives rise to the verb
narasu, adverb
narashi, and adjective
narushi." This is supported by entries in a dialect dictionary for nouns referring to flat areas:
naru (found in
Aida District, Okayama Prefecture and
Ketaka District, Tottori Prefecture) and
naro (found in
Kōchi Prefecture); and also by an adjective
narui which is not standard Japanese, but is found all across central Japan, with meanings of "gentle", "gently sloping", or "easy". Yanagita further comments that the way in which the fact that so many of these placenames are written using the character ("flat"), or other characters in which it is an element, demonstrates the validity of this theory. Citing a 1795 document, from the province of Inaba, the eastern part of modern
Tottori, as indicating the reading
naruji for the word 平地 (standard reading
heichi, meaning "level/flat ground/land/country, a plain"), Yanagita suggests that
naruji would have been used as a common noun there until the modern period. Of course, the fact that historically "Nara" was also written or as above is further support for this theory. • The idea that Nara is derived from
nara (
Japanese for "oak, deciduous
Quercus spp.") is the next most common opinion. This idea was suggested by a linguist, Yoshida Togo. This noun for the plant can be seen as early as in
Man'yōshū (7–8th century) and
Harima-no-kuni Fudoki (715). The latter book states the place name
Narahara in
Harima (around present-day
Kasai) derives from this
nara tree, which might support Yoshida's theory. Note that the name of the nearby city of
Kashihara (literally "live oak plain") contains a semantically similar morpheme (Japanese
kashi "live oak, evergreen
Quercus spp."). • Nara could be a
loanword from
Old Korean, related to Middle Korean
narah and Modern
Korean nara (: "country", "nation", "kingdom"). This idea was put forward by the linguist
Matsuoka Shizuo. American linguist
Samuel E. Martin notes that the earliest attestation of this word in Korean sources—given in an eighth-century
hyangga text, in the
phonogramic form —should be read as
NAL[A-]ak. This is similar to the form implied by the Old Japanese writings of Nara that transcribe the second syllable with
楽 (
raku), and Martin notes that the city name has been "long suspected of being a borrowing from the Korean word". Kusuhara et al. argues that this hypothesis cannot account for the fact there are many places named Nara, Naru and Naro besides this Nara. • There is the idea that Nara is akin to
Tungusic na. In some Tungusic languages such as
Orok,
na means earth, land or the like. Some have speculated about a connection between these Tungusic words and Old Japanese
nawi, an archaic and somewhat obscure word that appears in the verb phrases
nawi furu and
nawi yoru ('an
earthquake occurs, to have an earthquake'). The "flat land" theory is adopted by
Nihon Kokugo Daijiten (the largest dictionary of Japanese language), various dictionaries for place names, history books on Nara, and the like today, and it is regarded as the most likely. ==History==