What's the difference between "家" (ya), "屋" (ya), and "や" (ya) as used in the names of shops/stores/restaurants?


As a gyudon addict I have noticed that the names of the three major national
restaurant chains all end in "ya" but they used two different characters:

  * "吉野家" (Yoshinoya)
  * "松屋" (Matsuya)
  * "すき家" (Sukiya)

Other shops and restaurants I've noticed just use the hiragana instead:

  * "や" (ya)

So is there a subtle difference where one is more like restaurant and the
other is more like shop/store? And is the hiragana a handy way to be ambiguous
or would people reading such a sign immediately know whether "や" stood for "屋"
or "家" based on their language intuition?

While I'm at it, is this yet another character for "ya" used in the same
contexts?

  * "店"




屋 and 家 both roughly mean _"house"_ , with 屋 tending more towards the meaning
of _building_ and 家 more towards _home_. The choice of which to use is
entirely the owner's. や is the ambiguous way to write either and is pretty
much a stylistic choice. Do keep in mind that in the olden days Japanese
stores tended to be part home, part store, with the owners living in the back
while serving guests out front. You can still find such stores today, but
they're disappearing in favor of purely business stores. The naming stuck
though, possibly due to it's "homeliness".*

店 _ten_ has the pure meaning of "store".

* * *

* Note that I'm pretty sure that even in in the olden days there were purely business stores called _-ya_. I can't say whether 屋 was used for such whereas 家 was used for "home stores" or whether the choice was always arbitrary.




屋 and 家 both roughly mean _"house"_ , with 屋 tending more towards the meaning
of _building_ and 家 more towards _home_. The choice of which to use is
entirely the owner's. や is the ambiguous way to write either and is pretty
much a stylistic choice. Do keep in mind that in the olden days Japanese
stores tended to be part home, part store, with the owners living in the back
while serving guests out front. You can still find such stores today, but
they're disappearing in favor of purely business stores. The naming stuck
though, possibly due to it's "homeliness".*

店 _ten_ has the pure meaning of "store".

* * *

* Note that I'm pretty sure that even in in the olden days there were purely business stores called _-ya_. I can't say whether 屋 was used for such whereas 家 was used for "home stores" or whether the choice was always arbitrary.

