3 182202465 1721 s$J%*mf- m^W Jfe*'^^*^ *'* WWW;: -'W - Library

A BOY BABY'S LIFE. 73
entering public life, receiving promotion, or on
account of some great event or change. Mr. Rai,
having ideas of his own, wanted his son to have
one name all his life, so he gave him not a baby's
name, but one that would suit him always. Besides,
the common people, the nobles, the gentry, the doctors,
scholars, and priests, mechanics, farmers, etc.,
each have a class name. This makes it
usually
quite easy to tell who and what a man is by the
form of his name. See a name on a card and you
can read his ancestry, social origin, or business occupation.
A page from the teacher's registry in a
school for the sons of nobles will read very differently
from that on a tax-list of farmers or a company
roll of a mechanics' guild or merchants* corporation.
Often a father will call his son by names which
mean " firstborn," " second " darling," child number
three," " fourth " arrival," fifth treasure," etc. Most
commonly in the families of the gentry, the son
takes one half of his father's name and joins it to
some name after this root-word. In one famous
family, the Minamoto, or Geuji, known to every
Japanese, there were Yoshi-tomo, Yori-tomo, Sane"-
other terms in which Yoshi or
tomo, and many
Tomo was the root-word.
Usually after the baby's name is decided upon, the
party consisting of father, uncle, or some other
relative, accompanied by grandparents, aunts, cousins,
and little folks, proceed to the family temple. In
this case some of the little folks carried various