三樽別 さんたるべつ Santarubetsu
Tomioka, Teine-ku, Sapporo, Ishikari region, Hokkaidō
Ainu spellings: San-taor-ke, San-taor-pet
The documentary spellings fall into two families, one ending in ke and one in pet, and the readings proposed for the name differ in how many of them they cover. The Nyūhokki record of a hill called Santarasike, with a river of the same name beside it, is the one entry that says which feature carried the name first.
Location
43.1017, 141.2313 · Coordinates: OpenStreetMap Nominatim, 2026-09-10, on 三樽別川. Open in OpenStreetMap
Referents
- river The Santarubetsu River, crossed by Route 5 below the KDDI transmission tower at Tomioka.
- settlement The former district name of Tomioka, Teine. A post house, the Santarobetsu tsūkōya, was set up here in 1871 and began the Japanese settlement; the name was replaced by Tomioka in 1942 and survives in the Santarubetsu River, Tomioka-Santarubetsu Park and the Santarubetsu riverside green.
- mountain A hill called Santarasike in the Nyūhokki, which the author identifies with Tomioka-Maruyama (141 m) or with the whole rise at Tomioka.
Analyses
sandarotkihi
サンダロッキヒ ‘the place where deer are brought down’ received reading- san ‘come down (singular)’
- ta ‘there’
- rototke ‘repeatedly’
- ihi ‘place’
Proponent: 永田方正 (Nagata Hōsei)
The river sign on the Santarubetsu River gives the name as サンタラッケ or サンダロッキヒ with this meaning. Nagata's spelling is sandarotkihi '鹿を下す処'. The segmentation into san-ta-rototke-ihi is the author's attempt to make the spelling yield parts; the word sandarotkihi appears in no dictionary. The author suspects the reading came to Nagata from the elder Kotoni Mataichi.
Objections
- rototke is a suffix that attaches to verbs, so the segmentation is ungrammatical as it stands. Nothing in either spelling corresponds to a word for deer; the Ainu words are yuk, apka, ryaw, momanpe and others. サンダロッキヒ appears in none of the documents surveyed. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
The form has no dictionary word behind it and the documentary record does not carry it.
san-tar-ke
サンタラケ ‘the place of the rope that goes down’ received readingProponent: 北海道（三樽別川河川標識）
The spelling サンタラッケ that stands beside サンダロッキヒ on the river sign, under the gloss 'the place where deer are tied with rope and unloaded'. The segmentation is the author's, again to see what parts the spelling could hold. Taken with the other spelling it does convey lowering something on a rope.
Objections
- Neither spelling contains anything for the deer of the published gloss, and the fit is forced. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
san, tar and ke are all dictionary words, so the parts hold, while the gloss on the river sign does not follow from them.
san-ta-ratki
サンタラッキ ‘the mountain spur hangs over there’ proposed- san ‘mountain spur, headland’
- ta ‘there’
- ratki ‘hang down’
Proponent: 榊原正文
Sakakibara: 'this name is supposed to describe, with the word ratki, the overhanging state of a spur or cliff that stands (or stood) in the basin of this river', and offers as the candidate the one just above the Sassō bypass. The author takes that to be Tomioka-Maruyama (141 m), the small hill across from the Santarubetsu riverside green.
Objections
- ratki describes something hanging, as the front flap of a loincloth hangs; in landform names it turns up mostly for falls, as in so-ratki 'the waterfall drops', and Rakkibetsu Falls at the eastern tip of Etorofu is named that way. No waterfall on the Santarubetsu River is on record. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
ratki is a dictionary verb and an overhanging bluff is a real landform here, but the usual use of the word is for falling water.
san-tararke-pet
サンタラルケペツ ‘the bumpy river that comes down from the mountains’ proposedProponent: Bojan international
The proponent marks the reading with a double question mark. The author found taratarak 'uneven, bumpy' in Kayano's dictionary.
Objections
- The Santarubetsu River is now walled in concrete along the visible stretches, so whether the bed is uneven cannot be judged. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
taratarak is a dictionary word, but the reading needs a syllable of it to drop and the referent cannot now be checked on the ground.
san-taor-ke
サンタラケ ‘the hill on the bank that juts out from the mountains’ proposedProponent: zenibako_trek（小樽銭函地名歴史研究会） (zenibako_trek (Otaru Zenibako Place-Name and History Society))
taor is 'high ground on a river bank' in Chiri's small dictionary of place-name Ainu, where taor-ke is given as the same word. It is pronounced taoro, and place names built on it commonly lose the o: Tarumae-yama is taor-oma-i, heard Taromai, and taor-oma-p gives Taromap. A final r with no following vowel takes the colour of the preceding vowel, so tar, taro and taru are all possible shapes. san is an intransitive verb and cannot govern two nouns, so it modifies taor: san-taor is 'the hill that comes down', paraphrased as 'the hill that juts out'. The hill is what the name describes, and the river carries its name. The author identifies the hill as Tomioka-Maruyama, or the whole Tomioka rise.
Variants
- san-taor-pet ‘the river of the hill that juts out’ — The reading for the spellings that end in pet.
Evidence
- documents
Tamamushi Sadayū names 'a hill called Santarasike' with a river beside it, so the name belonged to a hill first. The reading covers both branches of the documentary record at once, the サンタラッケ spellings through ke and the サンタラベツ spellings through pet.
- parallel place names
Tarumae-yama is taor-oma-i, recorded as Taromai; taor-oma-p gives Taromap.
- topography
The Sapporo-goe shindō of the Ansei era ran well up the slope from the present Route 5, near the Sassō expressway. From the bridge over the Santarubetsu River there, Tomioka-Maruyama (141 m) stands out on the mountain side. On the 1871 map the Santarubetsu stretch alone juts into the marsh, and Matsuura Takeshirō describes climbing 'a small rise' when passing here, and in winter leaving the road to cut around the hill. Seen from Inaho in Teine, the hill blocks the view toward Tomioka, with Mt. Teine and the ranges behind it.
The reading is grammatical, matches the Nyūhokki record of a hill of this name, and covers both spelling families. Its key element taor is in neither dictionary; the support for it is Chiri's small dictionary of place-name Ainu and the Tarumae parallel.
Attestations
- サンタラツケ／サンタラッケ document Edo period to early Meiji 再篙石狩日誌; 東部作発呂之誌; 西蝦夷日誌; 東西蝦夷山川図; 石狩場所絵図; 陸地測量部20万
The commonest spelling in the documents. 東西新道誌 has サンダラツケ, 入北記 サンタラスケ, 新川開墾図 サンタラシケ; the author reads these as light variants of the same shape.
zenibako_trek… - サンタラベツ／サンタラペツ／サンタルヘツ document Edo period to early Meiji 入北記（川一覧）; 蝦夷海岸山道絵図; 札幌郡西部図
The other half of the record, ending in pet. 北海道巡視御用留 and 開拓使事業報告 have サンタロベツ and 後藤蔵吉日記 シダラベツ; the author notes that santaru and santaro forms appear only from the Meiji period.
zenibako_trek… - サンタラシケ／サンタラスケ document Edo period 入北記
トツフシルヲマナイ（※軽川）という川に至り、是を過ぎてサンタラシケと云ふ山あり。其処に川あり、是又サンタラスケ川と云ふ、此処にて小憩。
Tamamushi Sadayū names a hill Santarasike and a river beside it. The same diary writes the name five ways: サンタラシケ, サンタラスケ, サンタベツ, サンタラベツ, サンタラヘツ.
zenibako_trek… - 三鱈別 map c. 1871 明治四年新川開墾の図
The map drawn about 1871, before the Sapporo–Otaru road of the colonial office was finished, so it probably shows the Ansei-era Sapporo-goe shindō. On it the Santarubetsu stretch alone juts out into the marsh.
zenibako_trek…
Related names
- 富丘 とみおか — The auspicious name that replaced Santarubetsu in 1942. Tomioka-Maruyama (141 m), included among the fifty peaks of Sapporo, stands across the river from the Santarubetsu riverside green. zenibako_trek…
- 樽前山 たるまえさん — taor-oma-i, recorded as Taromai, cited as a taor name in which the o is lost. zenibako_trek…
- トツフシルヲマナイ（軽川） かるかわ — The river Tamamushi passed just before reaching the hill and river of this name. zenibako_trek…