Where does “変体仮名” come from?

変体仮名 (Japanese) comes from Japanese 仮名, from Japanese 名, from Middle Chinese 名 — name.

変体仮名 (Japanese): hentaigana: obsolete, now-non-standard hiragana

Definitions

  1. hentaigana: obsolete, now-non-standard hiragana

Ancestry of “変体仮名”, step by step

変体仮名 traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.

via Japanese 仮名

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Japanese仮名a category of Japanese syllabary scripts: kana; a...
2Japanesename; reputation; famous, great, noted
3Middle Chinesename

via Japanese 変体

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Japanese変体variant; variation

Words derived from “変体仮名

Every word from Middle Chinese Every word from Japanese Every word from Japanese 仮名
変体仮名 — Etymology, Origin & Word History | Etymology Explorer