Kokuji: Kanji Invented in Japan

Most people who study Japanese learn early that kanji came from China — and that story is mostly right. What often gets skipped is the other half: some characters were never imported. They were built in Japan, for Japanese words, and they are called kokuji (国字), literally national characters (also wasei kanji, Japan-made kanji).

Kokuji are usually assembled from existing components and radicals, not drawn from scratch as a foreign script. There is no clean official total: across Japanese history almost anyone could invent a character, and many later fell out of use. Lists commonly put the number above 400, but only a modest set still appears in daily reading and names.

What are kokuji? Japan’s own kanji

Even without a Chinese origin, a few kokuji still carry an on reading. That usually happens when a radical or phonetic piece already has a Sino-Japanese sound, so the new character “inherits” it. Most kokuji, though, live on the kun side only — a native Japanese word looking for a written form. Below is a practical list of kokuji you are more likely to meet:

Responsive table: Scroll sideways with your finger >>

Kanji	On	Kun	Meaning
働	ドウ	はたら.く	work
込	—	こむ、こめる	crowded; to put in; to include
搾	サク	しぼる	to squeeze; to wring
峠	—	とうげ	mountain pass; peak; climax
畑	—	はた、はたけ	field; farm; cultivated plot
匁	—	もんめ	monme (old unit of weight, about 3.75 g)
枠	—	わく	frame; border; framework
塀	ヘイ	—	fence; wall
腺	セン	—	gland
榊	—	さかき	sakaki (sacred evergreen tree)
辻	—	つじ	crossroads; street corner
匂	—	にお.う、にお.い、にお.わせる	smell; fragrance (verb niou)
躾	—	しつ.ける、しつけ	training; upbringing; discipline

Characters such as 働 (person + move) and 辻 (road + cross) show the usual pattern: meaningful pieces stacked into a new whole. 働 is also one of the best-known cases with both kun (hataraku) and on (dō). 腺 “gland” is the reverse pattern — mainly an on reading for modern scientific vocabulary — and it later entered Chinese as well.

Kokuji are not a modern fad. Early examples appear in sources from the Nara period, before 759 CE, and coinage continued through the Meiji era, when Japan needed written forms for new technical ideas. Metric-era characters such as 糎 (centimeter) or 瓩 (kilogram) show that wave of invention; today those units are almost always written in katakana or rōmaji instead.

New everyday kokuji are unlikely in the near future. Many words that once used rare kanji — including some kokuji — now appear in kana, even while core characters remain essential to the writing system. Knowing roughly how many kanji Japanese readers actually use helps put the small kokuji set in perspective.

Here are more kokuji that are uncommon in general text. Many of them survive mainly in names, regional words, or older writing, and modern Japanese often prefers a more familiar spelling:

Responsive table: Scroll sideways with your finger >>

Kanji	On	Kun	Meaning
杢	—	もく	woodworker; carpenter
圷	—	あくつ	low land
噺	—	はなし	story; conversation (as a noun form)
噸	トン	—	ton (weight)
凧	—	いかのぼり、たこ	kite
凩	—	こがらし	cold winter wind
俣	—	また、ばた	crotch; fork (of a path/body)
麿	—	まろ	I (archaic); also a name element
糎	—	センチ、センチメートル	centimeter

Notice how several rows encode foreign measures or technical notions that Japanese later preferred to write in katakana. That shift does not erase the characters; it explains why you may never meet them outside a dictionary or a specialty text.

There are many more kokuji beyond these tables. We skip the long tail on purpose: most of those forms are rare, disputed in dictionaries, or limited to very specific names and flora/fauna labels.

Kokkun: same character, different Japanese meaning

Beside kokuji there is kokkun (国訓). These are Chinese-origin characters that kept their shape but picked up a Japanese sense that diverges from the usual Chinese meaning. A short sample:

Character	Japanese reading	Japanese meaning	Chinese (approx.)	Chinese meaning
藤	fuji	wisteria	téng	vine; cane
沖	oki	open sea; offshore	chōng	to rinse; to flush
椿	tsubaki	camellia	chūn	toona tree
鮎	ayu	ayu (sweetfish)	nián	catfish (often 鯰)

Import into Japan changed more than pronunciation. Meanings shifted, extra kun readings stacked up, and some characters became “false friends” for anyone who also studies Chinese. That history is one reason a single kanji can carry several readings and senses — and why kokuji and kokkun are easy to confuse until you separate invented form from repurposed meaning.