梅田
Umedaうめだ
'plum field' — or is it 'buried field'?
- 梅ume — plum (decorative substitute for 埋 'to bury')
- 田da — rice field
"Plum field" — how pretty. The likely original name meant "buried field." The plum was chosen because 'bury' looked bad on paper. Today one of the world's largest underground malls sits on that former marsh, with groundwater two meters below street level.
The leading account: this lowland marsh was filled in to make rice paddies, earning the name 埋田 — 'buried field.' The character 埋 (bury) looked inauspicious, so it was swapped for the homophone 梅 (plum). A 1461 temple document already records the name 埋田, and an alternative theory ties the name to a landowner called Umeda Sōan. Either way, the plum is decoration; the ground is reclaimed marsh.
Modern proof
Groundwater control was a major issue in the Umekita underground-station works (water 2 m below street level). A 2020 redevelopment dig unearthed some 1,500 human remains from the old Umeda cemetery.
sourceThe national survey's Meiji-era lowland data marks this whole area as former marsh.
Sources
- 日本歴史地名大系28 大阪府の地名(平凡社1986) p.570 ※レファレンス協同データベース経由[dictionary]
- 国史大辞典2(吉川弘文館1980) p.164 梅田宗庵説[dictionary]
- 国土地理院「明治期の低湿地データ」(河川・湿地・水田・葦の群生地の分布。近畿地区は明治17-23年の2万分1仮製図が原典)[government]