Re: Miko means...
in reply to a message by thegriffon
It should also be noted that "Miko" in Japanese can be made up of other kanji characters. As a name, I find it more likely that it would be made up of the kanji for "beautiful" (mi) and the kanji for "child" (ko) as opposed to coming from the term for the shrine maiden.
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That sense seems to be implicit in the idea of a shrine maiden. It's also written with the Kanji for shrine or "hikari", but still said "Miko". It could also mean "third child" (written with the Kanji for third "mi"or three "san", but see below), "true love" (written as mi "fruit" + koi "love") or "true child", or be an abbreviation of other names starting with mi and ending ko, such as Minamiko (South child) or Mitsuko, although the latter is a kenning of Miko, as Mitsu "light" is a synonym of hikari "shrine". Note that Mitsuko is also written as "san/mi (three/third)+ko (child)", so the latter may just be a use of the mi/san Kanji in place of the derivative Hiragana syllabic symbol for "mi".
This message was edited 7/24/2016, 10:38 PM