Posted by
Akagi on Friday, May 02, 2008 2:00:00 AM
Since a few people have been curious and not simply insulting about the name I use, I’ll once again write a detailed explanation of the name. People simply assume that the name is only the name of a Japanese aircraft carrier that was scuttled by the Japanese on June 5, 1942 during the Battle of Midway. It is in fact the name of an aircraft carrier that was scuttled on orders of Isoroku Yamamoto due to the damage done by dive bombers from the USS Enterprise—a single bomb hitting fuel and planes on deck and the resulting explosions and fire were unable to control and the Japanese destroyers Arashio, Hagikaze, Maikaze, and Nowaki launched a number of torpedoes into the ship causing it to sink. Of the carriers of the Kido Butai lost at Midway, Akagi had the fewest number of causalities. As for the destroyers, except for the Arashio (which means rough tide in Japanese) and was a Asashio-class destroyer (the Asashio meaning morning tide in Japanese) all the remaining were Kagero-class (Kagero meaning the shimer of hot air—like you see coming off the road in the summer) destroyers.
But the name Akagi is not just the name of an aircraft carrier lost at Midway. It is also the name of a Maya-class gunboat that fought at the Battle of Yalu Jiang during the First Sino-Japanese War. It retired from the navy in 1912 and served as a steamer until 1953. Both the Maya-class gunboat and the Akagi-class carrier (former Amagi-Class battlecruiser) Akagi were named after Mount Akagi (a volcano in the Kanto region, Gunma Prefecture, Japan). See url:
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/ohirune/yk/annai/sanzan/akagi.htm
It hasn’t erupted since the 1200s though. The name does mean red castle. Aka meaning red and gi meaning castle. Gi is usually pronounced as “jou” “ki” or “shiro” but when added to “aka” it changes to gi—one of many things that make Japanese especially annoying. In Chinese the Hanzi for the Japanese “gi” would be translated as “city” and pronounced as “cheng” such as in “zijincheng” for the Forbidden City in Beijing. Castle in Chinese usually has the character “bao” connected to it—e.g. chengbao or gubao. But often Japanese Kanji and Chinese Hanzi don’t agree on meaning.
Akagi can also mean red tree or red future as well (but the Kanji apart from the “aka” meaning red is different, and yes “aka” can also mean communist as in “akakari”).
Back to the carrier name though. All Amagi-class ships were named for mountians and the Akagi was no exception. Even when converted to a carrier in 1927, the name remained unlike the names of most of the newer Japanese carriers that were named after flying creatures such as the Soryu-class which were named after dragons, the Shokaku-class named after cranes (the bird)., the Hiyo-class named after birds of prey, Taiho-class named after the phoenix, Taiyo-class named after birds of prey as well (hawks), and the Unryu-class named after dragons as well. The exception to this was the Shinano-class that was named for an old province of Japan as was the Kaga-class. Amagi itself is the name of another mountain to the south of Mount Akagi in Shizuoka Prefecture—the name meaning heavenly city. Even though the original hull of the Amagi was destroyed in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, a carrier Amagi was built in 1943 and destroyed at the very end of the war. Based on the Hiryu class, it was part of the Unryu class mentioned above and like its destroyed namesake named for Amagiyama.
See url: http://www16.plala.or.jp/shibore/amagiyama.html
Akagi is also the name of a food company in Japan located in Saitama Prefecture, Fukaya City—which is a suburb of Tokyo.
See url: www.akagi.com
The name appears in various Manga and Anime series. A Japanese family name, a starship in Star Trek: TNG (NCC 62158), and the password for the security computer of Nakatomi Plaza in Die Hard (1988).
So my name is basically a volcano. I do like the fact though it drives the jingoistic types nuts though, but sometimes I wonder if it would have been better to use the Chinese pronunciation. Having to deal with the intellectually dull (your arguments are like your name sunk at the bottom of the sea) and those with the mentality of a 10 year old gets a little old sometime.