Yamamura means "mountain village." In Poul Anderson's Murder Bound, the Japanese-Norwegian private detective, Trygve Yamamura, is hassled by a guy called Waller. Did Wallers build walls? No, they boiled sea water. Well, further research reveals that they might have:
lived near a wall;
built walls;
lived by a spring or stream (well);
boiled sea water;
been cheerful.
(See Surname Database.)
Our Telephone Directory displays Walley, Walling, Wallis and Walls but I am damned if I am going to chase all those derivations. In fact, I had better stop googling characters' surnames.
"He fled down the companionway in search of the detective." (v, p. 47)
"As he came down again, Yamamura saw a man approach with stumbling haste." (vi, p. 54)
These two sentences are a good example of one narrative point of view segueing into another. Lauring flees in search of Yamamura who sees Lauring hastening towards him but, of course, we do not read both povs in a single sentence or passage. Now I must return to Yamamura's second confrontation with Walling.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And that name "Yamamura" also reminded me of the famous Japanese Admiral Yamamoto. These names both have "Yama" in them, so they may partly share the same meaning.
And I never heard before of people who boiled sea water for a living! Which certainly seems odd to me.
Sean
"boiled sea water for a living"
Probably it is for getting the salt that is left over.
Trade with places where the sea is adjacent to desert or where salt can be mined would have made that uneconomic.
As for names: Baerg is a variant of the German Berg= hill or mountain. So probably some ancestor of mine lived on top of a hill or on the other side of a hill.
Kaor, Jim!
I agree, there will be times and places where salt mining and processing sea water will be economical.
I also recall Stirling discussing how many Roman family names (as distinct from gens names) took their origins from their peasant sense of humor. Like "Baldy" or "Animalistic stupidity."
Ad astra! Sean
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