Most of the buildings are having their own names in Japan.
You will need to include them in the address when you are going to send something by post,
or when you are going to take a taxi.

There are a few kinds of common words being used in building names,
and I am gonna make a brief introduction to you today!

マンション (man-syon) = Mansion

Normally mansion is referred to a big house in English, but in Japanese, it means "condominium".
Especially referred to apartments built more than 3 floors, middle - large scales reinforced concrete made or steel reinforced concrete made buildings for accommodation.

アパート (a-paa-to) = Apartment

I know it's kind of confused, but here the apartment means buildings made lower than 3 floors, usually made of wood or steel reinforced concrete.
Most of them do not have an elevator, and of course, usually cheaper then mansion.

ハイツ (ha-i-tsu) = Heights

No, it's not the Wuthering Heights you thought. Heights usually being used in buildings made of steel reinforced concrete.

コーポ (co-po) = cooperative house

Basically same meaning as アパート (apa-to)

There are some other words frequently being used in apartment names like:

レジデンス (reji-densu=residence)
メゾン (me-zon = maison [French])
ヴィラ (Vi-la = villa)
カーサ (ca-sa =casa [Italinan])
パレス (pa-le-su = palace)
コート (ko-to = court)
ハウス (hau-su = house)

The building names are mostly been decided by the building owners, and I also noticed that due to unknown reason, they prefer to use French vocabularies e.g. Fleur de Maison, Blanc Noir, Lumiere...etc.

For older apartments, 荘 (sou)  or 館 (kan) might be used.
Such as the famous 80s' Japanese manga " Maison Ikkoku”.

If the names of the apartments make you confused and don't know which one to chose...

contact atinn!

Email us at nukumori@atinn.jp ,
or leave comments through "contact us" 
on the upper-right side to achieve more information!

Hope the above information helps!

Please note that the content is based on information in Nov 017. Please contact us or check the website of the companies mentioned above for latest information.