top of page

Is There a Haruno In Every Prefecture?

  • Writer: jiggerton
    jiggerton
  • Dec 14, 2005
  • 1 min read

Updated: Jun 6, 2024



The village I live in is called Haruno. Not an amazing name, but it sounds nice and Japanese-like. When I found out the neighboring towns of Tenryuu and Morimachi mean "ascending dragon" and "forest village" I decided to do a little research and see what meaning Haruno translated to. I'd hoped for something cool like 'village of eternal flowers' or 'town of mountain twilight' but I'd be happy with "eagle's nest" or "water's bridge." The fruits of my studies, however, proved less than astounding. Researching the characters that compose Haruno, i found out that 春 (haru) means "spring" and and 野 (no) means "field". . so of all the places to live in Japan, I moved to 'springfield.' The most common US town name ever, practically one in every state. Great. Oh well...



I had dinner with the Tabi-san, the Shinto priest from Akiha-jinja the other night. He told me the town was given the name Haruno/Springfield because the valley is like spring year-round. I told him that, at -2 celsius, spring is pretty damn cold this time of year.

bottom of page