The Mikado of Japan
Mikado is the actual Japanese word for the Imperial ruler of Japan. A Shogun would rule under the Mikado.
The word comes from parts "mi" and "kado" that meant, literally, "august" or "sublime" and "gate" or "portal."
Because so much writing about Japan appeared in the popular press, people in Gilbert's day would have understood the word Mikado rather specifically -- as the Imperial ruler of Japan.
(For more information about the character the Mikado, see the page devoted to his character.)
Nanki-Poo
Nanki-Poo's name may be one of the places in the libretto where Gilbert confused the Japanese and Chinese. "Poo," of course, is just part of the babytalk, but "Nanki" seems to me to belong more to "Nanking" rather than anything recognizably Japanese or British. (Nanking is a large city in China, the capital of Kiangsu Province.)
Nankeen cloth -- "[a] kind of cotton cloth, originally made at Nanking from a yellow variety of cotton, but now extensively manufactured from ordinary cotton and dyed yellow" -- was also common. Nankeen cloth would be less luxurious and more functional than linen or silk or fine wool.
For the "Poo" part of his name, see "Pooh," below.
(For more information about Nanki-Poo, see the page devoted to his character.)
Ko-Ko
It seems to me that the origin of Ko-Ko's name is over-determined.
"Koko" was, at the time the first edition of the OED was written, a west-African word (a "Fanti"-language word) for the taro root, kind of like a yam or sweet potato. The OED lists two examples of the use of this word, both from the late nineteenth century. If Victorian audiences recognized the name Ko-Ko as this word, perhaps it reinforced for them Ko-Ko's unaristocratic past and possibly even a national difference.
Martyn Green believes that Ko-Ko's name is authentically Japanese and means "pickles" (Green 415 n. 12).
Ian Bradley says, "Apart from the Emperor himself, Ko-Ko is the only one of the characters in The Mikado to have a real Japanese name. According to a Japanese-speaking friend of mine, the word Ko-Ko has no fewer than thirty-seven different meanings, depending on how it is pronounced. As pronounced in The Mikado (i.e. with the vowels long so that is sounds like 'cocoa'), it can mean pickles, filial piety, succeeding clause, grammar school, navigation, mineshaft or pithead, estuary, prince and marquess, month, trussed girder, bright, or so-and-so. Perhaps the first and last terms are most appropriate for the cheap tailor turned Lord High Executioner" (Bradley 562 n. 78).
Finally, there was a men's hair tonic of Gilbert's day with the brand name of Ko-Ko?
(For more information about Ko-Ko, see the page devoted to his character.)
Pooh-Bah
Pooh-Bah's name is one of the elements of this operetta that survives outside its bounds. People use "Pooh-Bah" now to describe someone important -- and self-important. A Pooh-Bah is big and imposing and contemptuous. Except in his more endearing form, of course, when we see he's harmless, at which point he's a Pooh-Bear.
Pooh! is, according to the OED, an "ejaculation expressing impatience, or contemptuous disdain or disregard for anything." For example, in Shakespeare's 1602 Hamlet:
(For more information about Pooh-Bah, see the page devoted to his character.)
Pish-Tush
Like "pooh," "pish" (which the OED calls a "natural exclamation") is a euphemistic word used to express "contempt, impatience, or disgust."
In Ben Jonson's 1598 Everyman in His Humour:
Step: "Why do you pish, Captain?"
Nowadays, people seem to want to pronounce Pish's second name, Tush, as if it were Yiddish (as if it rhymed with "push"), but the OED offers only TUSH, with a short u as a pronunciation.
(For more information about Pish-Tush, see the page devoted to his character.)
Yum-Yum
Well, she's not as innocent as she likes to think we believe, and not so artless, but she is -- apparently -- delicious.
(For more information about Yum-Yum, see the page devoted to her character.)
Pitti-Sing
"Pitti-Sing" is "pretty thing"? "pretty sing"?
(For more information about Pitti-Sing, see the page devoted to her character.)
Peep-Bo
"Peep-Bo" is parallel to "peekaboo," which is what American children say. The entry on "peek-bo" in the OED was written when the word was already "chiefly American."
In Charles Dickens' 1837 The Pickwick Papers, the narrator describes "Small restless black eyes, that kept winking and twinkling on each side of his .. nose, as if they were playing a perpetual game of peep-bo with that feature" (x).
There's possibly an echo of Bo-Peep, as well, who lost her sheep. Because Gilbert seems to have dropped the Peep-Bo character in the second act, I was thinking that Peep-Bo is shy and was less interesting as a character to him than the more active Pitti-Sing.
(For more information about Peep-Bo, see the page devoted to her character.)
Katisha
I have no idea where this name comes from.
(For information about Katisha, see the page devoted to her character.)
This discussion is based in part on the definitions of the words in the names of the characters in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which requires a little explanation.
To the dramatis personae of The Mikado, which has links to the individual pages for the characters as well as to renderings of the designs for the costumes for our production.
To Act I or Act II of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado.
To the homepage of this Mikado website.
Suggestions, contributions, criticisms, questions? Email Sharon Cogdill.
College of Fine Arts and Humanities
This URL: http://web.stcloudstate.edu/scogdill/mikado/names.html.
Last update: 18 May 1998.