Nishikigoi, the story of a name

Two hundred years ago, farmers of the Yamakoshi village in Niigata were breeding black carps (called magoi in Japanese) in the lakes used for rice field irrigation. One day, they noticed that some of the carps were being born with colored patterns... What followed was that the mutated colored carps were carefully bred and today there are no less than 16 varieties of what is commonly known as Nishikigoi, "brocaded carp".

The Nishikigoi term was coined by someone who, admiring a koi of the Taisho Sanshoku variety, exclaimed "this is a true Nishikigoi!", Nishiki being a silk fabric woven with gold. And since 1940, the term is officially used to designate this new ornamental variety of carp...