The Book of Satoshi: The Collected Writings of Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto by Phil Champagne

Being Satoshi

I am Satoshi
ne of the first questions most people ask when they question me
about being Satoshi Nakamoto is where the name came from,
and what it means.
Satoshi Nakamoto is an amalgamation of 富 永 仲 基 (Tominaga
Nakamoto) and Ash Ketchum (サトシ; Satoshi).
The name wasn’t something that I spent months and months on deciding,
and it doesn’t mean anything related to what you see on the wikis.
Rather, it was an attempt at privacy.
The Tokugawa period of Japan, between 1603 and 1868 was an
interesting period of isolationism in the country. The opposite of what
was happening in the West. Yet there was a monk who also talked about
trade, and he wrote a lot. In his writings he talked about the need for
open trade, open economy. The same sort of things that Adam Smith
talked about, except in the wrong country at the wrong time. That was
Tominga Nakamoto.
Ash is called Satoshi in Japan. It was a light-hearted reference to Ash the
Pokémon trainer. I thought it was a good play on words, because The
Economist had released a cover with a picture of a phoenix rising from
the ashes, and they were talking about the rise of a single world currency.
I thought it was funny. That Bitcoin would be the world currency, rising
from the ashes.
There was a secondary part of the name Satoshi. Satoshi Sugiyama was
adopted by an American and given the name David Phillips. It comes
from a book, The House of Morgan. David was adopted in both cases.
David Kleiman was adopted, and so was Satoshi. I admired the
“characters” in the book. It reminded me of a more glorious and
honourable period in banking. Not something that we could go back to,
but something we could remember when formulating Bitcoin. Pierpoint
Morgan was an interesting character and one who proved himself
through work.

The Book of Satoshi: The Collected Writings of Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto by Phil Champagne