静内しずない Shizunai

Shin-Hidaka, Hidaka region, Hokkaidō

Ainu spellings: Situ-un-nay

A moved name: the modern town and river carry a name that belonged to ground about 10 km away.

Location

42.3369, 142.3607 · Coordinates: OpenStreetMap Nominatim, 2026-09-10, on 静内. Open in OpenStreetMap

settlement Shizunai in the western part of Shin-Hidaka, the main town of the Hidaka region. The original Shizunai lay about 10 km south-east of the Shizunai River, at the place called Moto-Shizunai, where the monument to the landing of the settler band stands
river The Shizunai River, formerly called Shibechari; the name moved to it from Moto-Shizunai

シツナイ ‘stream on the ridge’ proposed

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 belongs to the original Shizunai, south-east of the present river.

Confidence: low

The parts are dictionary items in the senses used; the article states the reading without argument or a competing one.

zenibako_trek… 「静内（しずない）」

‘Mountain foot stream’ proposed

Proponent: John Batchelor

Confidence: low

Batchelor's reading and gloss as printed in 1905; the segmentation is his, and several of its elements answer to no dictionary headword.

Batchelor1905 § V "Place Names Considered", s.v. Shizunai

染退（シベチャリ）しべちゃり — The older name of the Shizunai River. Read si-pet-car 'the mouth of the main river' by the author; sipe-ican 'salmon spawning ground' is also proposed, which he sets aside because ican names lie further upstream. Shibechari was the seat of Shakushain, chief of the Menashkur, in the Kanbun rising, and the Shibechari casi stood on the cliff at the river mouth, where a statue of Shakushain now stands. zenibako_trek…

zenibako_trek… Batchelor1905