Japan Times: "What's in a Japanese name? More then you might expect"

Above, the stern of the Lucky Dragon No. 5.  "Maru" is clearly shown. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

The Japan Times has an interesting article on the hows and whys boats are named the way they are.

They begin with:

Last year I went to Yumenoshima Park in Tokyo’s Koto Ward to see a museum housing the 第五福竜丸 (Dai-go Fukuryu Maru, aka No. 5 Lucky Dragon), the ill-fated fishing boat that inadvertently sailed too close to a 水爆実験 (suibaku jikken, thermonuclear test) at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands in March 1954. 

This led me to wonder why many Japanese ships were named 丸 (maru); but nobody I asked seemed to have a satisfactory explanation. It eventually dawned on me that the authoritative “広辞苑 (Kojien)” dictionary ought to know, and in it I found an amazingly straight forward explanation: Maru was simply a variation on the male suffix “maro,” which is applied to personal names, as well as to swords and ships.

If you've ever wondered about Japanese boat/ship names and other things, then check out the article here.