The etymology is opaque. Kayano 1996, Nakagawa 1995 and Ota 2022 (Ishikari) list ciray 'Japanese huchen' unsegmented; Chiri 1987 (§077) gives the phonemic shape či-ráy and the synonym chirat-chep without a semantic analysis. Sukientia (2026) hazards 'scattering thorns (?)' — the question mark is his own — connecting ciray with cir.