JJK Characters' Japanese Names

The title itself is 呪術廻戦, read Jujutsu Kaisen. 呪術 (jujutsu) means sorcery or curse techniques, and 廻戦 (kaisen) roughly means a battle that goes round and round. The author's pen name is 芥見下々, Gege Akutami.

In Japanese, names are written family name first. So Yuji Itadori is 虎杖悠仁, Itadori Yūji. English releases flip the order for most characters, which is why you'll see both versions online. The long vowels (ū, ō) are usually dropped in English too, so 五条 Gojō becomes plain Gojo.

Gege Akutami clearly chose some of these names on purpose. Here are the ones with meanings worth knowing.

Itadori Yūji (虎杖悠仁)

虎杖 (itadori) is the Japanese name for Japanese knotweed, a famously tough, hard-to-kill plant. The first character, 虎, means tiger. For a protagonist whose whole thing is surviving what should kill him, it fits.

Fushiguro Megumi (伏黒恵)

伏黒 combines "to lie down / hide" and "black", which suits a shadow user. 恵 (megumi) means blessing, which becomes a little ironic given how the story treats him.

Kugisaki Nobara (釘崎野薔薇)

釘 (kugi) means nail, the exact tool she fights with. 野薔薇 (nobara) means wild rose: pretty, and full of thorns.

Gojō Satoru (五条悟)

悟 (satoru) means enlightenment or understanding, a nice fit for someone with the Six Eyes, who sees everything. 五条 is an old, aristocratic-sounding family name. Gojo is one of the three great jujutsu families in the story.

Ryōmen Sukuna (両面宿儺)

Ryōmen Sukuna isn't an invented name. It comes from a two-faced, four-armed figure in Japanese legend, recorded in the eighth-century chronicle Nihon Shoki. 両面 literally means "two faces", which explains Sukuna's true form.

Mahito (真人)

真人 can be read as "true human". That's a dark little joke for a curse born from what humans feel about each other, who believes the soul is just a shape you can change.

Other names with meaning

七海 (Nanami) means "seven seas". 秤 (Hakari) means a scale or balance, a fitting name for a gambler. 九十九 (Tsukumo), Yuki's family name, literally means "ninety-nine". 乙骨憂太 (Okkotsu Yūta) includes 憂, which means melancholy or worry, and that's Yuta at the start of JJK 0. 狗巻 (Inumaki) starts with 狗, an old character for dog.

The jujutsu world is run by three old clans: the Gojō (五条), the Zen'in (禪院) and the Kamo (加茂). Zen'in is written with an older form of the character for Zen, and the apostrophe in the English spelling shows that the n and the i are separate sounds, Zen-in rather than Ze-nin. Maki, Mai, Naoya and Naobito are all Zen'in. Megumi is too, by blood, through his father Toji, who left the clan and took his wife's family name, Fushiguro.

If you're planning to use a JJK character's Japanese name for something permanent, double-check the kanji against the official manga volumes. A few characters have rare or old-fashioned forms that autocorrect will swap for a common one. 禪 in Zen'in is the usual victim, getting replaced with the modern 禅. The table below uses the forms printed in the manga, along with the romanised reading in Japanese order.

The technique names are just as deliberate as the character names. Domain Expansion is 領域展開 (ryōiki tenkai), literally "territory unfolding". Gojo's domain, Unlimited Void, is 無量空処 (muryōkūsho), built from Buddhist vocabulary for boundless emptiness. Sukuna's Malevolent Shrine is 伏魔御厨子 (fukuma mizushi). Black Flash is 黒閃 (kokusen), black plus flash.

Megumi's Ten Shadows is 十種影法術 (tokusa no kage bōjutsu). The 十種 part is a nod to the Ten Sacred Treasures of Shinto legend, which is also where the Mahoraga summoning chant draws from. Gojo's Limitless is 無下限呪術 (mukagen jujutsu), "sorcery without a lower limit", which is a more literal description of how Infinity works than the English name suggests.

A few names trip up English speakers. Itadori is i-ta-do-ri, with even stress on each syllable. Fushiguro is fu-shi-gu-ro. Kugisaki is ku-gi-sa-ki, with a hard g. Gojō has a long o at the end, go-jōh. Sukuna is su-ku-na, not soo-KOO-nah. And Nanami is na-na-mi, the same as the common Japanese given name.

Japanese doesn't stress syllables the way English does. It uses pitch instead, so the safest approach is to say each syllable evenly. You'll sound closer to the anime than if you put a heavy stress on one syllable.

Sukuna's name comes from the Nihon Shoki, as mentioned above. The Zen'in, Gojō and Kamo clans are written in a way that suggests old aristocratic families from Kyoto, which fits a jujutsu world run by tradition. Yuta Okkotsu is revealed in JJK 0 to be a distant relative of Sugawara no Michizane, a real ninth-century scholar who, in Japanese legend, became a vengeful spirit after his death. Gojo is connected to Michizane too, which makes Yuta and Gojo distant relatives.

Honorifics are part of how JJK characters talk about each other, and the English subtitles don't always keep them. Yuji calls Gojo "Gojo-sensei", the teacher honorific. Geto is one of the very few characters who calls Gojo "Satoru". Todo calls Yuji his 親友 (shin'yū), his "best friend", which is the friendship he invents mid-fight. Choso calls himself Yuji's older brother, 兄 (ani) or お兄ちゃん (onii-chan), long before Yuji agrees.

Even small things like that change how scenes feel in Japanese, which is one reason some fans prefer the subtitled version.

The table below covers the main cast. For the main cast, our full character profiles also list each Japanese name. If you can read kana, the manga volumes also print furigana (small reading guides) above the harder names the first time each character appears, which is the most reliable way to check a reading.