Interpreting Shrine Names
Shrine nomenclature has changed considerably since the Meiji period. Until then, the vast majority of shrines were small and had no permanent priest. With very few exceptions, they were just a part of a temple-shrine complex controlled by Buddhist clergy. They usually enshrined a local tutelary kami, so they were called with the name of the kami followed by terms like gongen, ubusuna (産土?), short for "ubusuna no kami", or guardian deity of one's birthplace, or myōjin (明神, great kami?). The term jinja (神社?), now the most common, was rare. Examples of this kind of pre-Meiji use are Tokusō Daigongen and Kanda Myōjin.
Today, the term "Shinto shrine" in English is used in opposition to "Buddhist temple" to mirror in English the distinction made in Japanese between Shinto and Buddhist religious structures. This single English word however translates several non equivalent Japanese words, including jinja (神社?) as in Yasukuni Jinja, yashiro (社?) as in Tsubaki Ōkami Yashiro, miya (宮?) as in Watarai no Miya, -gū (宮?) as in Iwashimizu Hachiman-gū, jingū (神宮?) as in Meiji Jingū, taisha (大社?) as in Izumo Taisha, mori (杜?), and hokora/hokura (神庫?).
Shrine names are descriptive, and a difficult problem in dealing with them is understanding exactly what they mean. Although there is a lot of variation in their composition, it is usually possible to identify in them two parts. The first is the shrine's name proper, or meishō (名称?), the second is the so-called shōgō (称号?), or "title".
Read more about this topic: Shinto Shrines
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