The Japanese city named Kyoto is an anagram of a more famous city, is this a coincidence?

Question

Tokyo, the capital city of Japan is an anagram of the Japanese city, Kyoto. Is this "anagram" a coincidence? Or, was the jumbling of letters to produce one city name from the other purposely done?

Answer 1

Doubtful, because the original names would have been in Japanese characters, not English; and I don't think those anagram very well.  I would suspect it's just a case of common sounds in a language being used in similar ways - sort of how we have New York and Newark.

Answer 2

To-kyo in Japanese means Eastern Capital. Kyo-to means Capital city.

The kanji for the two names share the "kyo" character which means Capital. If I could figure out how to post kanji in YM, I'd show you, but you can probably Google it yourself.

I do not think it is anything more than a coincidence made more possible by the use of a common kanji character..

Answer 3

This is Words and Wordplay.  I thought that yours was a totally valid and observant hi-jink. I like Australians and Saturnalia.