#and ura-niwa (backyard) is literally (sorta) 'reverse garden'

[daily-hyosatsu]

Not a name but I just LOVE stuff like this :) An adorable interpretation of the character 鳥 (tori or chō), meaning bird.

Here's how the character may have evolved over time:

Also important to know: in a food context, 鳥 means chicken. There is also a character that specifically refers to chicken: 鶏, which is also read tori when referring to chicken meat (or 鶏肉 toriniku). For live birds, it's read niwatori,* and its on-yomi is kei, as in the chicken and rice dish 鶏飯 keihan.

*A good mnemonic for this is garden bird! 庭 niwa means garden or yard, so that makes the bird in your garden a 鶏 niwatori. It's also part of a famous tongue twister:

庭には鶏が2羽いる niwa ni wa niwatori ga niwa iru There are two chickens in the yard.

And if you're fucking awesome at tongue twisters (like I am!!!), here are some trickier versions. (And there's more here.)

裏庭には２羽、庭には２羽、鶏がいる ura-niwa ni wa niwa, niwa ni wa niwa, niwatori ga iru There are chickens, two in the backyard and two in the yard.

庭には鶏、裏庭にはワニ niwa ni wa niwatori, ura niwa ni wa wani There are chickens in the yard and an alligator in the backyard.