Ishiguro

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A Japanese family name borne by Kazuo, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist born in Nagasaki who settled in Britain
2. The surname of Kazuo, the Japanese-born British author of novels such as The Remains of the Day
3. Family name of the Nagasaki-born British writer Kazuo, a Nobel laureate known for melancholic fiction

Etymology: Kazuo Ishiguro is the Nagasaki-born novelist who won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature, and his surname is a Japanese family name. The first element, "ishi" (石), means "stone" or "rock," and the second, "guro" (黒 or 畔 in various names), is usually read as "black" or as a term for an edge or field. Many Japanese surnames are built from such nature words, describing a place where a family once lived, so "Ishiguro" most likely denotes a stony or dark spot of ground, though the exact kanji of this family's name is not something I can confirm. The name reached English-speaking readers through the author's family, who moved to England in 1960 when he was five, and through his novels such as "The Remains of the Day" (1989). The surname itself was not borrowed as a common word; it remains a proper noun, and the sense "stone-black" is a reconstruction from its parts rather than a meaning English ever adopted.