Is there a name for the abbreviated (usually three-syllable) title?


Surely the act of abbreviating an anime title to three syllables has a
name...? And what is that name?

Full Name | Shortened  
---|---  
_Kodomo no Omocha_ | Kodocha  
_Jungle wa Itsumo Hare nochi Guu_ | Hareguu  
_Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai_ | Oreimo  
_Fruits Basket_ | Furuba  
_Japanese Animation_ | Anime




For what it's worth, in Japanese, you would call this particular sort of
abbreviation a 略称 _ryakushou_ or 略語 _ryakugo_ , both of which basically just
mean "abbreviation". There isn't an anime-specific term for this sort of thing
or anything.

I should mention that abbreviated names of anime are more commonly four
syllables than three-syllables, at least in recent years. "Hareguu" is Ha-re-
gu-u (actually, these are
[morae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_\(Japanese_prosody\)) rather than
syllables, which is why this may not be obvious if you're unfamiliar with
Japanese); "Oreimo" is O-re-i-mo; and _Fruits Basket_ is frequently "Furubasu"
Fu-ru-ba-su in Japanese. There is a nice table of these [on
Nicopedia](http://dic.nicovideo.jp/a/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%8B%E3%83%A1%E3%82%BF%E3%82%A4%E3%83%88%E3%83%AB%E3%81%AE4%E6%96%87%E5%AD%97%E7%95%A5%E7%A7%B0%E4%B8%80%E8%A6%A7)
(JP).

As a side point of interest, [this blog](http://aniotakaigi.com/) (JP)
collates abbreviated names for anime of recent seasons - for example, 2015
[winter](http://aniotakaigi.com/2015-winter/anime5w/326/),
[spring](http://aniotakaigi.com/2015-spring/anime5s/1494/),
[summer](http://aniotakaigi.com/2015-summer/anime5su/2105/), and
[fall](http://aniotakaigi.com/2015-fall/anime5f/5400/). (Obviously, machine
translation is going to fail spectacularly for this sort of thing, so this is
only relevant if you can read some Japanese.)




For what it's worth, in Japanese, you would call this particular sort of
abbreviation a 略称 _ryakushou_ or 略語 _ryakugo_ , both of which basically just
mean "abbreviation". There isn't an anime-specific term for this sort of thing
or anything.

I should mention that abbreviated names of anime are more commonly four
syllables than three-syllables, at least in recent years. "Hareguu" is Ha-re-
gu-u (actually, these are
[morae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_\(Japanese_prosody\)) rather than
syllables, which is why this may not be obvious if you're unfamiliar with
Japanese); "Oreimo" is O-re-i-mo; and _Fruits Basket_ is frequently "Furubasu"
Fu-ru-ba-su in Japanese. There is a nice table of these [on
Nicopedia](http://dic.nicovideo.jp/a/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%8B%E3%83%A1%E3%82%BF%E3%82%A4%E3%83%88%E3%83%AB%E3%81%AE4%E6%96%87%E5%AD%97%E7%95%A5%E7%A7%B0%E4%B8%80%E8%A6%A7)
(JP).

As a side point of interest, [this blog](http://aniotakaigi.com/) (JP)
collates abbreviated names for anime of recent seasons - for example, 2015
[winter](http://aniotakaigi.com/2015-winter/anime5w/326/),
[spring](http://aniotakaigi.com/2015-spring/anime5s/1494/),
[summer](http://aniotakaigi.com/2015-summer/anime5su/2105/), and
[fall](http://aniotakaigi.com/2015-fall/anime5f/5400/). (Obviously, machine
translation is going to fail spectacularly for this sort of thing, so this is
only relevant if you can read some Japanese.)

