Question about station names

[Pashina12]

Just curious why station names use katakana, like in Aizu-Takinohara it has "taki" and "hara" in kanji and "no" in katakana instead of hiragana?

 

Also, what prompts the change of station names?

[railsquid]

Just curious why station names use katakana, like in Aizu-Takinohara it has "taki" and "hara" in kanji and "no" in katakana instead of hiragana?

 

 

Historical/local convention, no one particular logical reason.

 

Also, what prompts the change of station names?

 

 

Change of ownership, marketing reason, desire to differentiate it from other similar sounding stations/locations.

[bill937ca]

These indicate direction.

 

Kita: North

Higashi: East

Minami: South

Nishi : Wset

[velotrain]

While researching Nisshin Flour and the nearby Okawa station, I found a story about the station name being changed - unofficially as it turns out, for a scant three years.

 

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://hokarida.web.fc2.com/09_novel/081-22.html&prev=search

 

About a quarter of the way down, where "Okawa station" starts a paragraph - vs. ending one a little ways above this.