留萌 るもい Rumoi
Rumoi, Rumoi region, northern Hokkaidō
Ainu spellings: Rurmoppe, Runnumonpetsu
The name reached its modern shape through Matsuura's 1869 proposal 留萌ルルモエ, read Rumoi. Of the many moy names in Hokkaidō, the best known one is not among them. The Rurumoppe Ainu belonged to the Sōya sphere: Chōken of Hamatonbetsu, who led the Sōya district and traded with Sakhalin and the Amur, was the grandfather of the Rurumoppe chief Kotanpiru, and both wore Santan robes. Helmets and armour of the late Heian period have also been found in the district.
Location
43.9410, 141.6368 · Coordinates: OpenStreetMap Nominatim, 2026-09-10, on 留萌市. Open in OpenStreetMap
Readings in the place-name tables: ルルモオッペ Rur-mo-ot-pe
Referents
- river The Rumoi River. Before the flood-control works its lower course ran close under Ōgon-misaki, turned against the hill of Hiyoriyama and reached the sea there; the excavated basin of Rumoi harbour occupies its old bed.
- settlement The Rurumoppe post, whose territory answers roughly to the present city of Rumoi and the town of Obira, and the city of Rumoi itself.
Analyses
rur-mo-ot-pe
ルㇽモオッペ ‘place where the tide comes in quietly’ received readingProponent: 上原熊次郎 (Uehara Kumajirō)
First stated in 『蝦夷地名考并里程記』 of 1824: 「ルヽモツペ 夷語ルヽモヲツペの略語なり。則、潮の静に入る所と訳す。扨、ルヽとは潮の事。モは静と申事。ヲツは入る。ペは所と申事にて、満汐之節、此川へ潮の入る故。此名あるといふ。」 The reading has been followed since. The Rumoi city website gives 「アイヌ語のルルモッペが語源。ルルは（汐）モは（静）ヲッは（ある）ペは（水）のこと。「汐が奥深く入る川」という意味で、留萌市を流れる留萌川から名づけられている。」 and the river marker gives 「昔はルルモッペと呼び、語源はアイヌ語であると言われています。その意味については諸説ありますが、古い記録には「潮の静かに入るところ」という意味が書かれています。」 In the town a district called Shiozuka lies well inland, and at spring tide the sea is said to reach about that far.
Evidence
Objections
- 「留萌の語源について「ルル・モ・ペッ」（潮静川）から転じたという説があるが肯けない。」 — 『北海道駅名の起源』 zenibako_trek…
- The shape has no parallel. It breaks no rule of grammar. The scope of mo here falls on rur, which gives something like 'river at a place where the waves are calm' and reverses the sense. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
rur 'seawater' and mo 'be quiet' are both in Tamura in the senses used. The scope objection stands, and the article finds no other name built this way.
rur-pa-moy
ルㇽパモイ ‘the bay at the upper end of the sea’ proposed- rur ‘sea’
- pa ‘upper end, head’
- moy ‘bay’
Proponent: 『北海道駅名の起源』の執筆者（記事は知里真志保を推す） (the compilers of 『北海道駅名の起源』 (the article suggests Chiri Mashiho))
From 『北海道駅名の起源』: 「この地は古く「ルル・パ」（海・のかみて）といったらしい節がある。留萌はおそらく「ルルパ」の「モイ」（湾）だったのではなかろうか。普通に留萌の語源とされている「ルルモッペ」はこの湾に注ぐ川の名で、語源は「ルルモイ・ペッ」あるいは「ルルプンペッ」（ルルパの川）の転訛と思われる。」 The passage keeps three readings side by side, rur-pa-moy for the bay, rur-moy-pet for the river that flows into it, and rur-pa-un-pet 'river at the upper end of the sea'. The article takes the writer to have been Chiri Mashiho and reads the hedged wording as doubt about the received reading.
Variants
- rur-moy-pet ‘river of the sea bay’ — The name of the river flowing into the bay in the same passage.
- rur-pa-un-pet ‘river at the upper end of the sea’ — Given in the same passage as ルルプンペッ.
Objections
- Neither ルルパ nor ルルモイペッ appears in the older records, which makes the reading hard to support. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
The elements are dictionary words. Tamura glosses moy as 'whirlpool'. Three readings are offered at once and none of them matches a recorded spelling.
ru-un-mo-pet
ルウンモペッ ‘small river where there is a road’ proposedProponent: 松浦武四郎 (Matsuura Takeshirō)
Matsuura read the ルン of the Imai map's ルンヌモンベツ as ru-un 'there is a road'.
Objections
- The reading reaches ルンヌモンベツ and stops there: it gives no route to ルルモッペ, the spelling that carries the overwhelming majority of the records. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
Each part is a dictionary word and the shape is grammatical. It accounts for one spelling on one map and leaves the common spelling unexplained.
rur-rum-ot-pet
ルルモッペッ ‘river that clings to the sea cape’ proposedProponent: zenibako_trek（小樽銭函地名歴史研究会） (zenibako_trek (Otaru Zenibako Place-Name and History Society))
The rur-rum of this reading is Ōgon-misaki, the headland at Rumoi harbour, on whose crest Hiyoriyama once carried a beacon station. Beside the sense 'cling', ot of water carries 'collect, seep'. The article cites 『地名アイヌ語小辞典』 for the two words: 「rur, -i るㇽ 海；海水」 and 「rum るㇺ ①頭。ay・rum[矢・頭]やじり。②みさき。chi・nukan・rum[見える・崎]」.
Evidence
- morphological pattern
The author applies the rule that r before r becomes n, quoted from 『アイヌ語入門』 p. 171, so that rur-rum-ot-pet yields runrumoppet, close enough to the Imai map's ルンヌモンベツ. The change is not obligatory, so ルルモッペッ stands as well, and one form thus reaches both recorded shapes.
- parallel place names
Cape Erimo is en-rum 'pointed cape'. Ōgon-misaki is less sharp than Erimo, and the beacon station on Hiyoriyama above it marks it as a landmark. The article also notes that pa in the rur-pa of 『北海道駅名の起源』 carries the same sense 'head, cape' as rum, so that rur-rum and rur-pa come to nearly the same thing.
- topography
Before the flood-control works the mouth of the Rumoi River lay close under Ōgon-misaki, ran against the hill of Hiyoriyama, turned there and fell into the sea; the excavated part of Rumoi harbour is its old bed. The 1891 『天塩国留萌郡新旧市街全図』 and Megata Tatewaki's 1871 『北海道歴検図 天塩州 留萌』 show that course. The modern river reaches the sea well away from the cape.
rur, ot and pet are dictionary words. The sense 'cape' for rum rests on 『地名アイヌ語小辞典』 as quoted in the article: the Saru dialect dictionary gives rum only as a harpoon point, and Batchelor only as an arrow head. The reading's strength is that one form yields both ルルモツペ and ルンヌモンベツ.
Ruru-oma-pe
‘Brackish water’ proposedProponent: John Batchelor
But this name may really be Ruru-nuppe, Water of the salt plain.
Variants
- Ruru-nuppe ‘Water of the salt plain’
Batchelor's reading and gloss as printed in 1905; the segmentation is his, and several of its elements answer to no dictionary headword.
Attestations
- つるをつへ map 1700 元禄国絵図・元禄郷帳
The name first appears in the Genroku years.
zenibako_trek… - つつもつへ／ヌルモンヘ document 1727 享保十二年所附および附図zenibako_trek…
- ルヽモツヘ map 1821 伊能大図
From the Genroku records onward almost every source writes ルルモツペ or ルルモツヘ.
zenibako_trek… - ルンヌモンベツ map 1841 今井測量原図
Imai Hakkurō was the first to survey the whole coast of Hokkaidō in detail by boat, and his place-name positions are exact and fine-grained. The same sheet also carries 「ルヽモツヘ運上屋」, so this spelling is not a slip of the brush. Matsuura Takeshirō quotes the Imai map in 『廻浦日記』.
zenibako_trek… - 留萌ルルモエ／留持ルルモツ document 1869 松浦武四郎による町名案
Matsuura put forward two candidate names in 1869; 留萌ルルモエ was taken up and came to be read Rumoi. No Edo-period record carries ルルモイ.
zenibako_trek… - rur dictionary 1996
【名詞語根】海水。
Tamura's separate headword rur is the noun 'soup, broth', derived from this root.
田村1996 s.v. rur - rum dictionary 1996
【名】もり先(repa レパ《ツノザメ漁》をする op オㇷ゚《槍、もり》の先につけるもの…)。
The Saru dialect dictionary gives rum only as the point of a harpoon.
田村1996 s.v. rum - Rum dictionary 1905
Rum, ルム, n. An arrow head. ／ Ai … As:—Ai-rap, "feathers of arrow shafts." Ai-rum, "an arrow-head."
Batchelor also has the compound ay-rum that Chiri's toponymic dictionary cites for the sense 'point'.
Batchelor1905 s.v. Rum; s.v. Ai - mo dictionary 1996
【自動】[古(?)]静かである、働かないでいる(?)。
田村1996 s.v. mo
Related names
- 黄金岬 おうごんみさき — The headland at Rumoi harbour, taken by the author as the rur-rum of the name. Hiyoriyama above it carried a beacon station. zenibako_trek…
- 襟裳岬 えりもみさき — en-rum 'pointed cape', the best known rum name in Hokkaidō. zenibako_trek…
- アフンシラリ あふんしらり — The reef marking the boundary between Rurumoppe and Mashike, which may also have been the boundary between the Sōya sphere, to which the Rurumoppe Ainu belonged, and the Ishikari sphere. zenibako_trek…
- オタモイ・島武意 おたもい・しまむい — moy names elsewhere in Hokkaidō. The author sets rur-moy 'tidal inlet' and rur-rum-moy 'inlet of the sea cape' aside for Rumoi, since no Edo record carries ルルモイ and the modern reading comes from the 1869 spelling 留萌ルルモエ. zenibako_trek…