Kato/Tomytec Station Name Signs: Real or Fictional?

[RS18U]

I'm looking to put appropriate station names on my station and platforms.  Both the Kato 23-136 and Tomtec 020-3 come with a good selection of signs, including station signs.  But when I Google map them I can't find any specific locations so was wondering if these may be fictional names.  The signs include:

 

Kato:

• Higashi-Takahegi
• Ina-Fukushima
• Misaka
• Tang-Oe
• Iyo-Yamashiro
• Bungo-Shoe

 

Tomytec:

• Etsuki
• Yotsuzaki
• Ryokoji
• Wakamorikoen

 

Thanks,

Will

[bill937ca]

The Tomix names are coming up as Japanese names, but not necessary Japanese place names.

 

Higashi means east in Japanese.    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higashi

 

To use actual station names would involve paying licensing fees. So they use fictional names.

 

[RS18U]

Thanks @bill937ca yes most of the names Google to a real location, but not to a station by that name.  So makes sense to me about the licensing fee bit, and would also explain why the Kato ones have different colours with the same name.

 

Will

[Kamome]

Yes taking inspiration from real places. Japanese place names are quite matter of fact and lose some of their poetry once translated. This also allows some artistic license combining real places name parts to make up your own names. 

 

東 (East) can be read as higashi and tō as in Tōkyō 

 

Some examples

 

Bungo was actually a province in Kyushu, now Oita. 

 

Ina is a city in Nagano pref. on the west of Tohoku whereas Fukushima is on the east coast. 

 

Yotsuzaki depending on the kanji used could be read like this. 

四つ      崎

4           capes

(as in a headland rather than superhero clothing) 

By comparison 長崎(Nagasaki) just means long cape and Kawasaki 川崎 means river cape. They really do lose something in English. 

 

[Junech]

Maybe my background in TTRP world-building can explain to you why your translation of Nagasaki into "long cape" feels like loosing something:

 

I won't see it as a translation and more of a extraction of what the name Nagasaki origniates from. Probably there being a long headland where they founded the settlement. People aren't really imaginative when naming places... Mostly some geographical feature or who lived there first. So for a real place name translation you would need to go and search for an English naming "conventions" for places and translate the meaning of Nagasaki accordingly.

I did a small dive into that (can be helpful in future TTRPG worldbuilding):

Since I found it for Old English/Old Norse the place of Nagasaki potentially could be called Langness instead of "long cape". Sounds allready nicer I think and still skips over all the "places changing their name over time" part and I just looked up "long" (becoming the prefix "lang-") and "cape/headland" (becoming the suffix "-ness") in the convention I found on Wikipedia.

[RS18U]

4 hours ago, Kamome said:

Bungo was actually a province in Kyushu, now Oita. 

Thanks, this may be the station name I end up using as seems it would be a decent fit for Series 787 I just got.