Shikona

For example Kotoōshū Katsunori (琴欧洲 勝紀), whose performance had been disappointing since promotion to ōzeki made a subtle change to the last character of his name, with (州) becoming (洲), in a bid for better results.

The low-ranker Hattorizakura, known for his extreme lack of success with just three career wins to 209 losses, changed his shikona in January 2021 to Shōnanzakura, a reference to the Shōnan region of Kanagawa Prefecture where he is from, but also using the kanji for "victory.

"[2] A few wrestlers, such as Endō Shōta (遠藤 聖大), Shōdai Naoya (正代 直也) and Takayasu Akira (高安 晃), have kept their real family names as their shikona.

Much more often than Japanese wrestlers, they are often shikona that give a clue as to their origin: the names of Russian brothers Rohō Yukio (露鵬幸生) and Hakurozan Yūta (白露山佑太) both include the character (露), which is an abbreviation for Russia (露西亞).

American Henry Armstrong Miller wrestled under the shikona fighting war dragon (戦闘竜, Sentoryū), which is also homophonous with St. Louis, his city of origin.

Mongolian wrestlers are often identifiable by their use of the characters eagle (鷲, washi), horse (馬, uma, ma, or ba), wolf (狼, rō), or dragon (竜 or 龍, ryū), which are all venerated in Mongolia.