#yeah i think this merits the calligraphy tag!!!!!

[daily-hyosatsu]

Anyone up for a challenge today??? I got the first 2 and last 3 pretty readily, but the middle took me a LONG time (and some googling!).

Here are some small hints!

This name is 7 characters long. (I kept seeing 6!)

The first 5 characters are a man's name.

The surname is 2 characters, and it's a very common name that we've covered!

The given name is 3 characters, one of which is a number.

The last 2 characters indicate that it's a business.

Gosh, this takes me back to making logic puzzles for my students, about two lifetimes ago! Anyway. Click through for the answer!

The shop is called 齋藤浩三郎商店 or Saitō Kōzaburō Shōten. (Their Insta spells it Kozabro, which I LOVE.) 齋藤浩三郎 is the name, and 商店 [しょうてん] means shop, store, or business.

斎藤 Saitō is the 19th most common Japanese surname.

浩三郎 Kōzaburō follows a very common structure for male first names: (optional lead-in kanji +) [number] + 郎 or 朗. The number denotes birth order: Ichirō for first child/son,* Jirō for second,** Saburō for third, and so on.***

The lead-in kanji (again, optional) is usually a desirable character trait, as in 純一郎 Junichirō: genuine/purity + first + son. Here, it's 浩, which I see quite often in male names. It means vigorousness, abundance, or wide expanse. It's read おおき.い, ひろ.い, or コウ.

郎 means son. It comes from an official title in ancient China. It's almost always read ロウ but can also be おとこ or リョウ.

朗 means melodious, clear, bright, serene, or cheerful. It's read ほが.らか, あき.らか, or ロウ.

*First sons can also be 太朗 Tarō. The name is also kind of a stand-in for "boy"—the equivalent of John Smith is 田中太郎 Tanaka Tarō or 山田太郎 Yamada Tarō. (For Jane Smith, you change 太郎 Tarō to 花子 Hanako.)

*Second sons can also be 次郎 (next son).

***I say "and so on," but 四郎 Shirō is less popular than other numeral names, for obvious reasons, and also, the average number of children born per woman here in 2021 was 1.3(!), so, you know. The higher you go, number boys are rarer than they used to be.