Name that Town

 Well, the time has come to name the new section. Referring to it as "The New Section" all the time is starting to be a bit of a bore. It needs a name and now that things are taking a bit of shape, I think it's a bit easier to do it.

My first thought was to seek out a name that focused on the industrial nature of the space now. However, the space didn't ALWAYS have a factory plopped into the middle of it, so that didn't make sense.

The key words I thought of for the space were:
valley • tree • trees • circle

I started feeding them into Google Translate to see what came up. Some of the first passes had promise.

tree valley - Ki no tani
sunlight - Nikkō
sunlight valley - Nikkō no tani


However, I then realized that I wasn't using capitals to make it a proper name. Once I changed that, some other options came into play.

Tree Valley - Tsurībarē
Sunlight Valley - Nikkō barē
Valley Circle - Barēsākuru
Tree Ring - Tsurīringu

The circle and ring aspects came from the circular nature of the space.

So, after I came up with some basic ideas, I shot them past some friends who actually speak Japanese. This opened up a rather interesting dialog about the nature of Japanese words and structure.

Part of the conversation:

S: Okay, but ringed by trees and tree-ring are different which of the two do you want to convey

Malco:  Ringed by trees- more literal

The image I sent will be filled with trees when I'm done

M: Ah, I see This looks like "kinomura" tree village "Kinohara" tree and feild "Ennomori" or "morinoen" circle in woods "Kokage" small shade "Konohara" "kohara " small field "Koennohara" small circle field Etc....


It sent me for a bit of a loop and I had to make the choice to focus on a more "Americanized" view of the situation.

I'm not Japanese. I don't speak Japanese. I don't even READ Japanese. And, while I hope to pursue it one day, I'm not going to be 100% authentic with any of the layout section I have, so getting "close enough" was going to work for me.

I really appreciate the efforts made by my friends Michal and Steven - things got really interesting for sure! In the end, there could only be one winner. So, the name of the new section will be.....

Kiwamura - Tree Ring Village