室蘭 むろらん Muroran
Muroran, Iburi region, Hokkaidō
Ainu spellings: Mororan, Moruran, Mururan
The Ainu name belonged to the base of the Etomo peninsula, around today's Sakimori station, and only later covered the peninsula and the modern city. Every Edo-period record writes Mororan or a u/o variant of it; the four explanations Nagata Hōsei collected at the end of the nineteenth century show the name was already disputed then.
Location
42.3178, 140.9758 · Coordinates: OpenStreetMap Nominatim, 2026-09-10, on 室蘭. Open in OpenStreetMap
Referents
- settlement Originally the area at the base of the Etomo peninsula, around Sakimori station, where the slope in front of Senkaiji temple stands; after a bakufu camp was built there the name spread over the whole area including the Etomo peninsula, and is now the city of Muroran
- river The small stream in the hollow beside Sakimori station, taken by Nagata's third informant as the river the name belongs to
Analyses
mo-ru-e-ran-i
モルエラニ ‘place where a small road goes down’ received readingProponent: 知里真志保 (Chiri Mashiho)
The reading given by the city of Muroran and by the place-name books, usually translated 'small slope'. The author traces it to Chiri Mashiho. It repairs the intransitive ran with the applicative e-, and replaces the final nay of ru-e-ran-nay with the formal noun i. Yamada Hidezō took it up and explained ru-e-ran-i under Rubeshibe in Ainugo Chimei no Kenkyū 2, which is how it reached general circulation.
Objections
- No Edo-period record writes Moruerani; the author puts the first appearance of the spelling in the post-war years. A place name of the shape 'head noun + intransitive verb' is grammatical on its own, as in suma-san, suma-retar, suma-perke, nay-poro and i-sikari, so neither the inserted e- nor the final i is needed. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
Every part is a dictionary word and the analysis is grammatical, but the form itself is absent from the documentary record, and the article places its first appearance in the post-war years.
mo-ru-ran-nay
モルランナイ ‘river that goes down a small road’ proposedProponent: 元室蘭村アイヌ（『北海道蝦夷語地名解』所引）
Nagata Hōsei collected four explanations at Muroran and settled on this one, adding that it names a river inside the village and not the slope at Hotoeushi. The author points out that Moruran and Hotoeushi are names of different places, so that objection does not apply.
Objections
The parts are dictionary words in the senses given; the grammatical objection to an intransitive verb with two nouns stands.
mo-rueran-hotuye-usi
モルエランホトゥエウシ ‘place where one goes down a small slope and calls a boat’ proposedProponent: 絵鞆アイヌの言い伝え（『北海道蝦夷語地名解』所引）
Nagata's first explanation: before the mountain road was opened, Etomo Ainu crossed by small boat, hunted in the hills, came down the small slope, climbed the rock at Hotoeushi and called for the boat from Etomo. Hotoeushi is the cape east of Moruran, where the Hakuchō Bay lookout now stands; the author suggests hotoye-us-i 'place where one calls out' for it.
The explanation rests on a remembered practice, and this long form leaves no trace in the recorded spellings.
moru-ye-ran
モルイェラン ‘pus comes down from the hair’ proposed- moru-ye ‘pus from the hair’
- ran ‘come down’
Proponent: 幌別アイヌ（『北海道蝦夷語地名解』所引）
Told of an old man who lived at the place before the Etomo Ainu were moved there and whose sores ran from under his hair. Nagata reports the segmentation moru-ye-ran and glosses the whole as 髪膿下る without glossing the parts separately.
Objections
- Nagata calls the explanation abuse and adds that a name ending in ran does not suit a place name. — 永田方正 zenibako_trek…
The segmentation is reported without part glosses, and the story it rests on concerns one old man's ailment.
moru-ran
モールラン ‘to come down the slope in an undergarment’ proposed- moru ‘close-fitting undergarment’
- ran ‘go down’
Proponent: 和人某（『北海道蝦夷語地名解』所引）
Told of a woman chased by a bear in the hills who threw off her clothes, came down to Hotoeushi in her undergarment alone and called a boat.
Objections
- Nagata dismisses the explanation as not worth taking up. — 永田方正 zenibako_trek…
The first element is not an Ainu word in the article's report, and the proponent's own collector rejected the explanation.
mo-ru-ran
モルラン ‘a small road goes down’ proposedProponent: 上原熊次郎 (Uehara Kumajirō)
The Ainu interpreter Uehara Kumajirō gives this reading in Tōzai Ezo Chimeikō narabini Ritei-ki (1824), half a century before Matsuura's time: mo 'small', ru 'road', ran 'go down'. The author adopts it and translates it freely as 'small slope'.
Evidence
- morphological pattern
Names of the shape 'head noun + intransitive verb' occur across Hokkaidō: suma-san 'the rock juts out' (Ishiyama and Tegumi), suma-retar 'the rock is white' (Harusuna), suma-perke 'the rock is split' (Ranshima), nay-poro 'the river is big' (Naihoro in Sakhalin), i-sikari 'it goes round' (Ishikari). The author calls the pattern the etu-pirka construction, after etu-pirka 'the beak is beautiful'.
- parallel place names
The name ru-ran 'the road goes down' occurs on its own at Erimo, at Gokibiru and elsewhere.
- documents
Edo-period sources write Mororan, Moruran and Mururan, all of which the reading covers directly; the author holds that a change from Moruerani to Mororan goes well beyond the regular sound changes of Ainu place names.
Objections
- Nagata holds that a name ending in ran does not suit a place name. — 永田方正 zenibako_trek…
All three parts are dictionary words in the senses given and the sequence matches the recorded spellings without further change. Nagata's objection to a ran-final name is answered only by the list of noun-plus-intransitive-verb names the article itself assembles.
Mo-ru-ran-kotan
‘The village of the gently descending road’ proposedProponent: John Batchelor
A very good description of the old road over the mountains to old Mororan.
Batchelor's reading and gloss as printed in 1905; the segmentation is his, and several of its elements answer to no dictionary headword.
Attestations
- モロラン document Edo period 東西蝦夷山川地理取調図; 伊能図; 今井原図; 間宮河川図; 東蝦夷日誌; 武四郎廻浦日記; 蝦夷巡覧筆記; 北夷談; 東行漫筆; 観国録; 絵図面方角道規地名控; 文化蝦夷図; 蝦夷闔境輿地全図; 改正蝦夷全図; 松前蝦夷地嶋図; 松前絵図; 東韃沿海図
The maps and journals of Matsuura Takeshirō, Inō Tadataka, Mamiya Rinzō, Imai Hakkurō and Mogami Tokunai all write Mororan. No Edo-period source writes Moruerani.
zenibako_trek… - モルラン document 1727 享保十二年所附zenibako_trek…
- ムルラン document Edo period 木村蝦夷日記
The author reads the u/o variation as the common confusion of Ainu u with Japanese o, as in Ushoro for Oshoro.
zenibako_trek… - モルラン document 1824 東西蝦夷地名考並里程記（上原熊次郎）
The interpreter Uehara Kumajirō writes that Mororan is the Ainu moruran, mo 'small', ru 'road', ran 'go down'.
zenibako_trek…
Related names
- 絵鞆 えとも — The peninsula west of Moruran. Mid-Edo sources carry Etomo earlier than Mororan; the name Muroran spread over the peninsula after the camp was built at Moruran. zenibako_trek…
- ホトエウシ — The cape east of Moruran from which boats from Etomo were called; the author suggests hotoye-us-i 'place where one calls out' for it. The Hakuchō Bay lookout stands there now. zenibako_trek…