御茶ノ水
Ochanomizuおちゃのみず
honorable tea water — doubted by its own source
- 御o — honorific prefix
- 茶cha — tea
- ノno — of (possessive)
- 水mizu — water
The Edo gazetteer explains the name by a shogun's tea — then calls the story a stretch. Three shoguns appear in the entry; whose cup it was is not settled.
In its entry on the Kanda aqueduct, the Gofunai Bikō passes the story along: a shogun's tea was drawn from the water upstream, and so the reach below it came to be called Ochanomizu — tea water. The gazetteer reports this at second hand, and then, in the next breath, allows that the explanation may be quite a stretch. Three shoguns appear in the entry — Hidetada, Iemitsu, and Ieyasu, who is also said to have held a tea ceremony. Whose cup it was, the entry does not settle.
Modern proof
The water's name became a station's, and the district is now known for its universities, hospitals and guitar shops — a derivation its own source doubted, still riding the most elegant name on the Tokyo map.