The English word "Japan" is an exonym. The Japanese names for Japan are Nippon and Nihon. They are both written in Japanese using the characters 日本. (It is, however, possible to disambiguate the pronunciation of the characters using furigana.) The Japanese name Nippon is used for most official purposes, including money, postage stamps, and international sporting events. Nihon is a more casual term and the most frequently used in contemporary speech.

Both Nippon and Nihon literally mean "sun origin", that is, where the sun originates, and is often translated as the "Land of the Rising Sun". This nomenclature comes from imperial correspondence with China and refers to Japan's eastward position relative to the Asian continent. Before Japan had relations with China, it was known as Yamato and Hi-no-moto, which means "source of the sun". Wa (倭) was a name early China used to refer to Japan, around the time of the Three Kingdoms Period. Although originally pejorative-the character used means "dwarf"-a different character 和, which has more positive connotations, came to be used. Retroactively, this character was adopted in Japan to refer to the country itself, often combined with the character 大, literally meaning "Great", to give the name "Yamato" (大和). When hi-no-moto was written in kanji, it was given the characters 日本. In time, these characters began to be read using pseudo-Chinese readings, first Nippon and later Nihon.

The English word for Japan came to the West from early trade routes. The early Mandarin Chinese word for Japan was recorded by Marco Polo as Cipangu. The Malay word for Japan, Japang, was borrowed from a Chinese language (possibly an earlier version of the modern Cantonese word yahtbun), and this Malay word was encountered by Portuguese traders in Malacca in the 16th century. It is thought the Portuguese traders were the first to bring the word to Europe. It was first recorded in English in 1577 spelled Giapan.

In English, the official title of the country is simply "Japan", one of the few countries to have no "long form" name. From the Meiji Restoration until the end of World War II, the full title of Japan was the "Great Empire of Japan" (大日本帝国 Dai-nippon teikoku). More poetically, another name for the empire was "Empire of the Sun". The official name of nation was changed after the adoption of the post-war constitution; the title "State of Japan" is sometimes used as a colloquial modern-day equivalent. The official Japanese title is Nipponkoku or Nihonkoku (日本国), literally "State of Japan".

Though Nippon or Nihon are still by far the most popular names from Japan within the country, recently the foreign words Japan and even Jipangu (from Cipangu, see below) have been used in Japanese mostly for the purpose of foreign branding.


Nihon and Nippon
The Japanese name for Japan, 日本, can be pronounced either Nihon or Nippon. Both readings come from the on'yomi.

日 (nichi) means "sun" or "day"; 本 (hon) means "base" or "root". The compound means "base of the sun" or "sunrise" (From a Chinese point of view, the sun rises from Japan); it is of course a source for the popular Western description of Japan as the "Land of the Rising Sun".

Nichi, in compounds, usually loses the final chi and creates a slight pause between the first and second syllables of the compound. When romanised, this pause is represented by a doubling of the first consonant of the second syllable; thus nichi 日 plus ko 光 (light) is written and pronounced nikko, meaning sunlight. Hon in compounds also often changes to bon or pon; H, B and P are closely related sounds in Japanese.

There are therefore two possible pronunciations for 日本: Nihon or Nippon.

While both pronunciations are correct, Nippon is frequently preferred for official purposes, including money, stamps, and international sporting events, as well as the Nipponkoku, literally 'The Nation of Japan' (日本国).

Other than this, there seem to be no fixed rules for choosing one pronunciation over the other; in some cases one form is simply more common. For example, Japanese people call their language Nihongo; Nippongo, while grammatically correct, is never heard. In other cases, uses are variable. The name for the Bank of Japan (日本銀行), for example, is given as NIPPON GINKO on banknotes, but often referred to (in the media, for example) as Nihon Ginko.

Nippon is used always or most often in the following constructions:

Nippon-koku kenpo (Constitution of Japan)
Ganbare Nippon! (A sporting cheer used at international sporting events, roughly, 'hang in there Japan!')
Nippon-bashi (日本橋) (a town in Osaka where electronic goods stores are gathered)
Nihon is used always or most often in the following constructions:

Nihon-jin (Japanese people)
Nihon-go (Japanese language)
Nihon-shoki (an old history book, never Nippon-shoki)
Nihon-bashi (日本橋) (oldest and largest commercial districts in Tokyo)
Nihon-kai (Sea of Japan)
Nihon Koku (Japan Airlines)

Jipangu
Jipangu (ジパング) is an obfuscated name for Japan that has recently come into vogue for Japanese movies, animes, video games, etc. As mentioned above, the English word "Japan" has a circuitous derivation; but linguists believe it derives in part from the Portuguese recording of the early Mandarin Chinese word for Japan: Cipangu. In modern Japanese, Cipangu is transliterated as ジパング which in turn can be transliterated into English as Jipangu, Zipangu, Jipang, or Zipang.