Masako

Masako is a classical Japanese name whose ko ending marks it immediately as a daughter's name from a certain era, most commonly the mid-twentieth century. The masa can be written with characters for elegance, justice, or truth, while ko means child. It belongs most famously to Empress Masako, the Harvard-educated former diplomat who married into the imperial family, and before her to Hojo Masako, the twelfth-century nun-shogun. Three smooth syllables fall easily, the consonants soft, the vowels clean. It feels like a name pulled from a black-and-white photograph yet still lived in. Composed and quietly formal.