Where does “katakana” come from?

katakana (Portuguese) comes from Japanese 片仮名, from Japanese 仮名, from Japanese 名, from Middle Chinese 名 — name.

katakana (Portuguese): katakana Japanese syllabary

Definitions

  1. katakana Japanese syllabary

Ancestry of “katakana”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Japanese片仮名Katakana, a set of Japanese syllabary characters,...
2Japanese仮名a category of Japanese syllabary scripts: kana; a...
3Japanese名name; reputation; famous, great, noted
4Middle Chinese名name
Every word from Middle Chinese 名 →Every word from Japanese 名 →Every word from Japanese 仮名 →