Red Seal Ships: Alternate Names?

I don't want to give too much away, but I'm delving further into Japan in my timeline, The Prince of Peace. One object of fascination are the Red Seal Ships, ocean going ships that mixed western, Japanese,and Chinese designs to create ships that were larger than the average Portuguese Carrack and could even be larger than some of the bigger Galleons the European powers had at their disposal.

Now, Japanese just isn't my forte language wise. I can do naming conventions alright, but thinking outside the box to create a neat name for a certain option is impossible. The Red Seal Ships were known as Shuinsen (朱印船), but I'm looking for alternate terms.

The big difference is the time period. These ships are appearing within the mid 1570s, utilizing pieces of western knowledge, but still resemble traditional boats and Junks used by the Chinese. It's the end of the period that we really start to see the pseudo-Red Seal Ships as they were.

The big reason I'm looking for a different name is the ships in PoP aren't ships for trade; nor are they chartered, at least formally. They aren't even for trade at all. Sure, they can be, and a few number of trading families out of Nagasaki may be using them as such, but the big reason of piracy. The Wakou pirates were notorious for terrorizing the Chinese coast have begun to use these ships with great force, terrorizing not only their old haunts in China, but even starting to appear as far south as the Gulf of Siam and strait of Malacca, preying on Spanish shipping.

One idea I had is Yuureisen (幽 霊船) which is basically ghost/phantom ships, based on the fact that these embolden Wakou often attack at night and in the early morning, appearing right out of the fog. But seems too easy. And again, as chroncicles fearfully write that they literally come from no where out of the: Fog/Mist Ship, Kiri no fune (霧の船) is very possibly tut again it seems... so bland.

So I figured I'd turn to the Japanophiles of AH.com. ;) Anyone got any creative names for the proto Red Seal Ships being used by the Wakou to terrorize East Asia?
 

PhilippeO

Banned
that were larger than the average Portuguese Carrack and could even be larger than some of the bigger Galleons the European powers had at their disposal.

Carrack usually larger than Galleon, after galleon exists carrack became larger cargo ships.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galleon#History

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_India_Armadas#Ships

Anyone got any creative names for the proto Red Seal Ships being used by the Wakou to terrorize East Asia ?

hmm, fog ship and phantom ship is bland ? very difficult to top that.

Japanese ships ?

Blood ships ?

Eastern ships ?

Eastern Demon ships ?

Nagasaki ships ?

Beaked ships ? (on galleon)

nanban-sen ( "Southern Barbarian ships"). use its japanese name.

Botafogo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botafogo_(galleon))

Fire ships ? (if equipped with cannon)

Thunder Ships ? (if equipped with cannon)
 
Carrack usually larger than Galleon, after galleon exists carrack became larger cargo ships.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galleon#History

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_India_Armadas#Ships



hmm, fog ship and phantom ship is bland ? very difficult to top that.

Japanese ships ?

Blood ships ?

Eastern ships ?

Eastern Demon ships ?

Nagasaki ships ?

Beaked ships ? (on galleon)

nanban-sen ( "Southern Barbarian ships"). use its japanese name.

Botafogo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botafogo_%28galleon%29)

Fire ships ? (if equipped with cannon)

Thunder Ships ? (if equipped with cannon)

Yes, apologies. Carracks were often larger, placement wise. I got things mixed up: they were often Galleon size ships with 300-350 ton placement but still smaller than the Carracks (which had 1000 Ton placements).

I am leaning towards Yuureisen simply because it sounds sound half decent by my creation, but you do have some interesting ideas. One idea was something revolving the Chinese Dragon Kings, but it simply... didn't translate well into Romanji or even English and sounds even more ridiculous. Blood Ship could be interesting, though. Botafogo simply doesn't translate into Japanese well, although it'd be an interesting name if simply there was an explanation of why they'd use it.

They could also be known as Barbarian Hunters/Crushers/Raiders, as they mainly begin shifting from attacking the Chinese coast to targeting Spanish Shipping. Yabanjin Ryoushi literally means Barbarian Hunter, so the name Yabajin for these ships may be possible...

Sadly a lot of cool terms simply give me rather blade names once Romanji, such as Blood Ship simply being the term + fune. Yuureisen has been about the only other name I've gotten for these beefed up Wokou ships, which while it sounds cool, the fact it means, literally, Ghost Ships, seems bland to me. :( But I may just be being picky. Romanji isn't a huge concern, but I'd need terms for the story that the readers could actually read, rather than Kanji. I was hoping some Japanese linguists may be of assistance. The period we're talking about is quite different, and despite being different in my ATL, it's neat to see the early Tokugawa period and how open Japan was vis-a-vis trade.
 
The term "Red Seal Ships" comes from the colour of the seals they carried to prove they were approved traders of the Tokugawa. The said seals were red and inside were letters from the Shogunate which gave authenticity to their claims and those were written in gold.
 
The term "Red Seal Ships" comes from the colour of the seals they carried to prove they were approved traders of the Tokugawa. The said seals were red and inside were letters from the Shogunate which gave authenticity to their claims and those were written in gold.

Yes, I'm aware of where the name came from. The ships were known as Shuinsen in Japan, which is the Romanji term for Red Seal Ships. The ATL ships I am discussing for PoP share similarities in that they have western influenced designs, but rather than for trade, they are being used by the age old Wokou pirates as warships. So the name wouldn't be very appropriate. It was also an linguistic exercise on my part, wanting to find something 'different' that these ships would be called.
 
I'm leaning towards either nanbansen or kirousen (鬼佬船), "kirou" being the Japanese reading of "gweilo".

Of course, 佬 is not a character used in modern Japanese, but seeing as it has an existing Japanese pronunciation, it probably used to be...
 
I'm leaning towards either nanbansen or kirousen (鬼佬船), "kirou" being the Japanese reading of "gweilo".

Of course, 佬 is not a character used in modern Japanese, but seeing as it has an existing Japanese pronunciation, it probably used to be...

Both very good names... Kirousen has a very nice ring to it, IMO. Nanbansen could be used as a name for these 'pirate' ships used for trade, as although the majority will be used as war, some wealthy families and bafuku have built/purchased them for trading purposes.
 
How about one borrowed, or adapted, from Chinese? They called fire ships Floating Dragons. So what about Floating Tigers?
 
Top