Why do some Japanese people write parts of their name in hiragana?


I have recently noticed that one of my coworkers writes his surname partly in
hiragana when writing by hand.

This strikes me as odd, because his surname doesn't have multiple readings (to
my knowledge) and is made of relatively simple kanji. He always writes it in
kanji when typing. (For reference, the name is 桑野 and he writes it as 桑の)

Is there any reason someone would do this, and is it common? Or is he just
being lazy?




This phenomenon mainly occurs in orthodox brand/shop names. Quite a few
traditional-style Japanese restaurants are officially named like もり川【かわ】 and
三【み】むら, even though 森【もり】 and 村【むら】 are not difficult kanji at all. I haven't
wondered why, but according to [this
question](http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q11132074861)
and [this
question](http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1279413222),
this tradition seems to have originated from the belief that even numbers
([especially four](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraphobia#In_Japan)) are
unlucky because it can be easily divided into two. People today are no longer
that superstitious, and we can think of this simply as one of the common ways
to establish the visual identity of the shop. Today you can easily find two-
character, partly-hiragana restaurant names like 吉【よし】の. So the appearance of
桑の itself doesn't strike me as too weird to me.

When people write their signatures or initials by hand, many people try to
make them look unique so that it won't incidentally look similar to signatures
by others. I believe this is true among English speakers, too. In my office,
some of my colleagues have to write their names on paper more than 30 times a
day, and they have developed their own ways to write their surnames fast. Many
chose to write their names entirely in hiragana or katakana, and some created
almost unreadable signatures. I guess your coworker decided to use の as the
unique part of his signature. I wouldn't say it's very common, but it's
understandable.




I guess your coworker uses _hiragana_ の simply because it is easier to write
and 野 is very common in surnames and the natural guess for の.¹

_Hiragana_ (or _katakana_ ) or variant _kanji_ may also be used in surnames to
simplify writing, such as 早せ川 (早瀬川) or 斎藤 (齋藤).

However, you wouldn't use shorthand in (formal) correspondence like emails,
etc.

* * *

¹ You can check the database of names in the _koseki_ register
[here](http://kosekimoji.moj.go.jp/kosekimojidb/mjko/PeopleSearch). These are
all characters read の:

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hCriw.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hCriw.png)

The last four characters are _hentaigana_ of 乃, 能, 能, and 農, respectively.

