厚賀 あつが Atsuga
Hidaka town, Hidaka region, Hokkaidō
Ainu spellings: Ap-pet, Kapar-i
A compound Japanese-era name formed from the first characters of Atsubetsu and Gahari, each of which carries its own Ainu reading.
Location
42.4218, 142.2273 · Coordinates: OpenStreetMap Nominatim, 2026-09-10, on 厚賀橋. Open in OpenStreetMap
Referents
- settlement Atsuga, near the boundary of Hidaka town and Niikappu; the Hidaka-Atsuga interchange is the present end of the Hidaka expressway. The name joins Atsubetsu and Gahari
- river The Atsubetsu River and the Gahari River
Analyses
ap-pet
アッベツ ‘winding river’ proposedProponent: zenibako_trek（小樽銭函地名歴史研究会） (zenibako_trek (Otaru Zenibako Place-Name and History Society))
The reading is for the Atsubetsu of Hidaka. Atsubetsu in Sapporo is a different name, written Hashushibetsu in the old records and read has-us-pet 'river where the shrubs are'. The author reaches the sense of ap from nut 'river shallows' and nutap 'bend of a river', and adds that ap also means fishhook, which he takes to be derived from the sense of a bend. Abetsu in Biratori is read the same way, and the author extends the reading to Akkeshi as ap-kes 'the end of the bend', by the rule p-k to kk, which suits the hooked shape of the Akkeshi peninsula. Names in atsu elsewhere, Akkeshi, Atsuta and Assabu, have no settled reading.
pet is a dictionary word in the sense used. The dictionary sense of ap is 'fishhook'; the author derives the sense 'bend' from nutap and from the shape of a hook, and offers the reading as a trial.
kapar-i
カパリ ‘flat place’ proposed- kapar ‘be flat, thin’
- i ‘place’
Proponent: zenibako_trek（小樽銭函地名歴史研究会） (zenibako_trek (Otaru Zenibako Place-Name and History Society))
The reading is for Gahari, the second half of the compound name Atsuga. The author states it as a question.
kapar is a dictionary word for something thin or flat; the reading is offered without further support.