蘭島 らんしま Ranshima
Ranshima, Otaru, Shiribeshi region, Hokkaidō
Ainu spellings: Ranshimanay, Raosmanay, Rakosimanay
Yamada Hidezō writes of the name in 『北海道の地名』: 「他に例がなく、解しにくい。」 Six readings stand side by side, and the recorded spellings agree on ラ□シマナイ while differing in the second syllable. The author spent about a year on the name and offers ranko-usi-oma-nay while stating that none of the readings can be called right or wrong outright.
Location
43.1967, 140.8559 · Coordinates: OpenStreetMap Nominatim, 2026-09-10, on 蘭島. Open in OpenStreetMap
Readings in the place-name tables: ランオマナイシ Ran-osma-nay
Referents
- river The Ranshima River. Its tributaries are the Mochiya, Chibutashinai, Doba (Menoko) and Tanekichi (Tsukotan) streams; the Doba counts as the main course today under the rule that the longest tributary is the main stream. The 1921 land-registry map of Ranshima village shows the Mochiya also called Ranshima-sawa and, over almost its whole length, Katsura-no-sawa.
- settlement The village of Ranshima, Oshoro district, now the westernmost part of Otaru, on the boundary with Yoichi at Cape Fugoppe. Its beach is where sea bathing in Hokkaidō began.
Analyses
ran-osma-nay
ラノシュマナイ ‘place where they came down and entered’ received readingProponent: 永田方正 (Nagata Hōsei)
The reading behind 『忍路郷土誌』 and the river marker. Nagata attaches the story of Abuta Ainu who crossed the mountains, came down here, settled and multiplied.
Objections
- Every recorded spelling ends in nay, so the river is the subject of the name; taking people as the subject sits awkwardly with that. Whether the Abuta story bears on the origin of the name is a separate question that the article leaves open. In Ainu pronunciation ran-osma runs together as ラノシマ, and no Edo-period source writes ラノシマ. Further, ran is a verb 'descend' and has no nominal sense 'slope'. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
ran, osma and nay are all dictionary words in the senses used, and Tamura's osma takes a place as its object. The recorded spellings do not show the ラノシマ that this form would give, and the gloss requires a human subject that the final nay works against.
ran-osmak-nay
ラノシュマクナイ ‘river behind the downhill slope’ received readingProponent: 更科源蔵 (Sarashina Genzō)
First given in 『駅名の起源』 and carried by the Japanese Wikipedia. The slope is the Fugoppe crossing: Cape Fugoppe juts out between Fugoppe and Ranshima, and the land route runs over it. Horace Capron, riding over it in 1873 after it had been cut back, wrote 「道は途方もなく悪く、ひどい坂道である。馬は私が乗ったまま凄く急な坂道で転び、私は危うくその下になり、痛いどころか実にびっくりする。」 The article notes that anyone arriving from Yoichi along a flat beach would remember the climb.
Variants
- ra-osmak-nay ‘river behind the low place’ — The author's revision, replacing the verb ran with the locative noun ra so that the first element can head a noun phrase. Seen from the top of the slope, the river does lie low.
Objections
- ran is a verb and carries no nominal sense 'slope'; ra, the noun, means 'low place' and carries no sense 'slope' either. What the 'low place' refers to stays unclear, and Cape Fugoppe rises high, so the article holds the reading in reserve. As with ran-osma, the joined pronunciation ラノシマ appears in no source. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
With ra in place of ran the parts are all dictionary words in the senses used and the shape is grammatical. The referent of 'low place' is unsettled, and the author sets the reading aside on that ground.
ran-o-suma-nay
ラノシュマナイ ‘river of the rock that the slope runs onto’ proposedProponent: 榊原 (Sakakibara)
Roughly six in ten Hokkaidō place names written with 島 go back to suma 'stone', which the article treats as a reason to weigh readings built on that word.
Variants
- ra-o-suma-nay ‘river of the rocks in the low place’ — The author's revision with the noun ra. The rocks would then be the reef below Cape Fugoppe, which anglers still cross. In 1870 a party from the Higashi-Honganji walking from Hakodate to Sapporo took that reef as a short cut to avoid the climb over the pass; a print of the journey shows them crossing hand in hand below the cape with one man fallen into the sea and Ainu watching and laughing.
Objections
- With ra, the reading needs the rocks to be in a low place, while Cape Fugoppe itself stands high, so the rocks have to be the reef at its foot. The article holds the reading in reserve on the same ground as ra-osmak-nay. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
suma and nay are dictionary words and, with ra for ran, the shape is grammatical. What the 'low place' names is decided by choosing the referent; the record settles nothing here.
rawosma-i-nay
ラウォシマイナイ ‘river of the cape that goes into the sea’ proposedProponent: 榊原 (Sakakibara)
Sakakibara offers this form as a trial reading. rawosma joins raw 'the deep, the sinking bottom' to osma 'enter with force' and covers 'plunge in', 'sink' and 'sink in, get bogged down' of water, mud and snow.
Variants
- raw-osma-nay ‘sinking river’ — The author's shortening, dropping the i before nay, which no recorded spelling shows. Ranshima is a bathing beach today, and the article ties the reading to wading for the clams Matsuura ate and to the man who fell into the sea in the Higashi-Honganji print.
raw and osma are both in Tamura in the senses used, and rawosma would account for the second syllable being heard as モ or ゴ. Whether the name describes the river or the cape changes with the form chosen.
ran-suma-nay
ランシュマナイ ‘mountain stream where the stones come down’ proposedProponent: 大和田（『カムイルコト』） (Ōwada (『カムイルコト』))
Cape Fugoppe carries a tradition of falling stones, recorded from Muroe Ensuke by Kōno Hiromichi: 「昔男二人と女一人の兄妹がフゴッペチャシに住んでいた。兄はリコマアイヌ、弟はラワランケ、妹はコクッテシマツという名であった。このアイヌ達は意地が悪く、忍路や余市のアイヌがあの岬の下を通ると上から石を落として邪魔するので、危くて通れなかった。」 The three were destroyed by the Oshoro and Yoichi Ainu acting together and the way became safe. Whether Ōwada had the story in mind the article does not know.
Objections
- The Ranshima River runs out onto a sand beach, so it is unlikely to carry stones down in the literal sense. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
ran, suma and nay are dictionary words and the shape reaches ランシマナイ directly, which is the one Edo spelling with n. Its support is a tradition attached to the cape, while the name ends in the word for the river.
ra-osma-nay
ラオシマナイ ‘river that drives downward’ proposedProponent: オタルナイ・レコードの浜田さん
Hamada explains the pronunciation: Ainu avoids two vowels in sequence, so the a and o of raosma are separated by a glottal stop, ra'osma. That, on his account, is why the second syllable of the name was heard variously as モ, ヲ or ゴ. The article extends the same explanation to ra-o-suma-nay.
Objections
- osma is a forceful verb, covering 'strike', 'rush into', 'drive into', so a river so named would have run fast. The Ranshima basin is nearly flat, the beach is broad and the tributaries are not steep, and the river runs quietly. The article allows that the flood-control works changed the course, and that before the channel was diverted behind the railway line the river flooded the village repeatedly, which would leave osma open. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
ra and osma are both Tamura headwords in the senses used, and the glottal-stop account covers the variation in the second syllable, which is where the spellings actually differ. The gradient of the river runs against the force osma carries.
ranko-usi-oma-nay
ランコシオマナイ ‘river that goes into the katsura grove’ proposedProponent: zenibako_trek（小樽銭函地名歴史研究会） (zenibako_trek (Otaru Zenibako Place-Name and History Society))
The author works from the river, taking the opposite direction to the readings above, which start from the sound. The 1921 land-registry map of Ranshima village, the only surviving record of the old sub-district names there, shows the Mochiya stream also called Ranshima-sawa, which identifies it as the stream the name belonged to, and shows Katsura-no-sawa across almost its whole length. Mochiya is Japanese: 『忍路郡郷土誌』 records 「モチヤ沢……安政の昔、この沢に「餅屋」と称する日蓮宗の篤信家が来て庵を結び、西川漁場と交渉をもつことにより生計を立てていたという」, and the Shichimenzan Myōhōji temple up the valley carries a pagoda dated Bunkyū 3. On this reading Katsura-no-sawa is a translation of the Ainu name and Ranshima-sawa a phonetic spelling of it, and Matsuura's ラコシマナイ has the ranko of katsura behind it. oma is a transitive verb 'be located, be in, enter'; the Ainu reckoned a river from its mouth, so 'enter' means going upstream along it. 『萱野茂のアイヌ語辞典』 gives 「ranko ランコ カツラ：丸木舟を掘ると軽いので操作しやすいため．一番多く舟材として用いた．」
Evidence
- parallel place names
Rankoshi in Shiribeshi is ranko-usi 'katsura grove' and is pronounced Rankoshi, which the author takes as showing that ranko-usi-oma-nay can reduce to ランコシオマナイ. The neighbouring valleys carry boat-building names: the Chibutashinai stream beside the Mochiya is chip-ta-us-nay 'stream where dugouts are always cut', with Funatori-yama named after it, and a tributary of the Fugoppe River next along is written チプタヲマンヘ or チプタフンコエ, read chip-ta-oman-pe(t) 'the one where they go to cut dugouts'.
- topography
A katsura grove is likely to have stood upstream around the foot of Kenashi-yama, where the Ainu went to cut trunks thick enough for dugouts. Little of it survives: from the end of the Edo period to the war the hills were stripped for fuel and hut-building once Japanese herring fishing began. Matsuura, passing the mouth of the Shinkawa, recorded the shortage and the ban on unauthorised cutting: 「其にて山々の材木を切取る時は、山の材木時に切尽すべし。其故に是を禁じ置事。またタカシマも材木不足にて、是はヲシヨロと並び場所故、皆ヲシヨロ山より切出すなり。」 The Oshoro-yama of that passage is taken to be Kenashi-yama at the head of the Ranshima River, and the Doba of Doba-sawa is a place where cut timber was stacked. Walking the hills today the author finds planted young spruce and no katsura trunks fit for a boat.
Objections
- The author states the objection against his own reading: the form runs long against the recorded spellings. Whether the o of oma can drop so that ランコシオマナイ shortens to ランコシマナイ he leaves undecided. He also raises the reverse possibility, that later Japanese settlers read Matsuura's ラコシマナイ and mistranslated it as 'katsura valley', which would make the sub-district name a consequence of the spelling, leaving it without evidential weight. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
ranko, usi, oma and nay are all Tamura headwords in the senses used and the shape is grammatical. The length against the recorded spellings is the open question, and the author leaves the direction of the link between Katsura-no-sawa and the Ainu name undecided.
Attestations
- ラ□シマナイ document Edo period 江戸時代の日誌・地図・文献
Very many of the spellings end in nay 'stream', which ties the name to a river; even when the cape is meant the sources write ラヲシュマナイサキ with the nay in place. The variation is concentrated in the second syllable, and the rest of ラ□シマナイ is nearly constant across the sources.
zenibako_trek… - ランシマ document Edo period 遠山村垣日記
The one Edo-period source with this spelling. No source writes ラノシマ or ランオシマ.
zenibako_trek… - ラコシマナイ document 1846 蝦夷日誌（松浦武四郎）
ラコシマナイ、小川有。牡蠣、蜆此処にて取れるよし。運上屋に支度を致しければ蜆汁を出せしが、此処の蜆なりと云いたり。
Matsuura was served Ranshima clams at the Oshoro post house and mentions them twice, the second time under ヲシヨロ: 「此蝦夷地中に無き品一種有。我ら此処へ休らひしに蜆汁を出しぬ。如何にも珍しき覚え皆賞しける。是は前にも云ラコシマナイに捕るよし也」. Freshwater clams live only in brackish water, so they came from the river mouth.
zenibako_trek… - Ranoshuma-nai dictionary Meiji era 蝦夷語地名解（永田方正）
Ranoshuma-nai ラノシュマ ナイ 下リ入ル処。古ヘ虻田「アイヌ」山ヲ越エテ此処ニ下リ入リテ住居シ其子孫南北ニ蕃息シタリト云フ
The Ranshima River marker repeats this with 蕃息 misprinted as 蕃恩 and the second syllable dropped: 「アイヌ語でラシュマナイ（下り入る処）古え虻田アイヌ、山を越えて此処に下りて住居し、其子孫南北に蕃恩したりと云う。」 Matsuura also records Abuta Ainu coming over the mountains and down at Temiya and Katsunai.
zenibako_trek… - ranko dictionary 1996
【名】[植物] カツラの木。
田村1996 s.v. ranko - ra dictionary 1996
【位名】下の方、低い所(rik リㇰ の対)。
田村1996 s.v. ra - raw dictionary 1996
【名】水などのもぐって行く中、深いところ、沈む底の方。
田村1996 s.v. raw - osma dictionary 1996
【他動】①(目的語は「場所」)(そこ)に入る、…に突っ込む、…に突進する、当たる、…に行って/入って/落ちてしまう。
田村1996 s.v. osma - osmak dictionary 1996
【位名】[概](所は osmake オㇱマケ) [os-mak …の後ろ、…の奥] …の後ろ、背後。
田村1996 s.v. osmak
Related names
- 畚部岬 ふごっぺみさき — The cape between Fugoppe and Ranshima, over which the land route ran. The Fugoppe chashi on it carries the tradition of the three siblings who dropped stones on passers-by, and the reef at its foot is where the Higashi-Honganji party crossed in 1870. zenibako_trek…
- 蘭越 らんこし — ranko-usi 'katsura grove' in Shiribeshi, pronounced Rankoshi. On the author's reading Rankoshi and Ranshima carry names of similar meaning. zenibako_trek…
- チブタシナイ沢 ちぶたしないさわ — chip-ta-us-nay 'stream where dugouts are always cut', next to the Mochiya. Funatori-yama takes its name from it. zenibako_trek…
- 土場沢 どばさわ — Also called Menoko-sawa; the longest tributary and the main course of the Ranshima River by the modern rule. Doba names a place where cut timber was stacked. zenibako_trek…
- 餅屋沢 もちやさわ — Also recorded as Ranshima-sawa and Katsura-no-sawa. The Japanese name goes back to a Nichiren devotee called Mochiya who built a hermitage there in the Ansei years. zenibako_trek…