It’s confusing to say “first name” and “last name” when talking about Japanese, which puts the family name first. I prefer “family name” and “personal name.” “Surname” etymologically means “added name,” but that’s not how we treat it nowadays. Let words say what they mean.
Utena’s family name Tenjou (天上) literally means heaven above, and can be translated simply as the heavens. It’s common for a Japanese family name to be a location or origin. The name Tenjou labels Utena as divine, living in or originating from heaven.
Utena as prince corresponds to Jesus, so in that symbolic sense she is from heaven. There’s a link between Utena’s family name and Akio’s stars. In episode 14, in the conversation with Kanae present, Akio talks about stars as having personalities that only he knows. Stars are people, and he claims special insight into their minds. In episode 37, at the end of the Routine Date, he admits to Utena that he is not truly interested in stars. He doesn’t care about the literal stars.
Akio, and Utena in general, often uses the word hoshi, star or celestial body, when it can refer to Utena—and rarely uses another word frequent in that context, hoshizora, starry sky. (It does come up once in episode 33, when Akio is talking with Anthy on the phone after the sex scene.) For example, in the First Seduction he says that the stars are beautiful tonight, and in the following episode 34 he compares Utena to a comet and also refers to her with the word hoshi. Utena’s name means sky, but she is never referred to as the sky, even metaphorically. She is always a star or a comet. She is sometimes visually represented as a star, for example with Anthy and with Touga. The sky is Utena’s home or origin, it is not what she is.
Anthy’s family name Himemiya (姫宮) means imperial princess, an emperor’s daughter. Miya (宮) often means Shinto shrine, but here it refers to the Imperial Palace, which I guess is a kind of shrine. Unlike the plain Japanese word hime (姫), which is translated as “princess” but has a broader meaning, I think the meaning of himemiya is close to the Western idea of a princess. It matches up with the Western fairy tale prince/princess. Anyway, as the symbolic daughter of an emperor, Anthy is also labeled as descended from heaven. Religiously, the Japanese Emperor is considered to be a descendant of Amaterasu (Wikipedia) the sun goddess. The Shinto shrine part of the name, miya (宮), connects with that.
Dios is the sun. Anthy is captured by Akio because she believes in Dios, so in that sense she is descended from Dios. She tells Utena that Akio is like a father to her, and she believes that Akio is the same person as Dios. And she is an aspect of the patriarchy, so in that sense she really is descended from Akio—or she is a part of him.
In episode 38, when Akio pulls out Utena’s sword and she turns into a princess in a pink dress and a crown, Akio calls Utena “my true princess” using the word himemiya. In little Utena’s prince story, she is only hime. Utena also uses the word himegimi for princess. Historically it meant the daughter of a lord. For example, when Touga sees Utena through his opera glasses in episode 11, he calls her a lonely princess, using himegimi.
Actually, Touga says only that he sees a lonely princess. He seems to intend Utena, but Wakaba and Anthy are there, and it fits them too. To emphasize it, we see his magnified views of each of them.
Utena and Anthy have celestial names because they are special. They’re the stars of the show. Akio’s name is celestial too: The three are the main characters of the main storyline. All other character names are earthbound.
In Japanese, the Earth is a star too; the same word hoshi applies to it. In Utena’s symbolism, stars are people, and everyone is a star. Being earthbound doesn’t prevent it. Still, there are several night sky images where I can identify Utena personally as a specific bright star. Nobody else is so easy to find in the sky.
Both characters’ personal names are written in katakana: Utena ウテナ and Anthy アンシー. It’s not rare.
The word utena has more than one meaning, but as Utena’s name it primarily means calyx, the outer cup portion of a flower which surrounds and protects the petals as they develop before the flower opens. In this Wikimedia photo of a rose bud, the calyx is the spiky green pieces which are opening to reveal the petals.
The green color of a rose calyx is meaningful. Green stands for control. Utena’s role as a calyx to Anthy’s rose was forced on her by Akio’s trickery in the prince story. Utena as prince exercises princely power (control) over Anthy (or tries to; in practice Anthy often controls Utena).
More meanings: The word utena can be written as 萼, though it is a rare nonstandard kanji that I had to look up (the word is more often spelled out in kana, as it is in Utena’s name). The word means calyx or cup. In Chinese the character is glossed as calyx, so I assume the cup meaning is derived from the cupped shape of a calyx. The cup meaning ties Utena to teacups—see the teacup reflection below. It can also be written as 台, a character that is usually pronounced differently but can be pronounced utena in some contexts. The basic meaning of 台, and the meaning of utena written as 台, is pedestal or stand or platform—an object to hold something up. The dueling arena is an utena in that sense, and I wonder about the pedestals of the statues. I also see the word utena glossed as “lofty palace”. I don’t know any background on that meaning, but I suspect it is rare or specialized. It could refer to Akio’s tower residence which is equated with the arena, or maybe to the castle in the sky.
The name Anthy is derived from Greek antheia, flowery. I didn’t realize this myself, and I’ve forgotten where I first learned it. In scientific terms, I take it to mean the corolla, the petals of the flower. Why only the petals? Because that is how the show depicts roses. The petals are often shown as closed (directly symbolizing immaturity or being closed off), and when open the interior reproductive parts of the flower are usually not visible (which can be taken as symbolic: Utena and Anthy cannot have their own children). See the rose emblems.
The teacup reflection from episode 11 can be interpreted as Anthy reflected in Utena. When the cup is empty, we see a rose emblem on the bottom. Here, Anthy replaces the emblem. The cup is a calyx; the outer edge of the cup is the pointy edge of the calyx. Utena is a teacup, containing and protecting Anthy like a calyx until she opens like a rose and becomes adult, that is, leaves the Academy. See the broken teacup of episode 26. It’s a depiction of Utena and Anthy as two aspects of the same thing.
Hera. Antheia is an epithet of Hera (Wikipedia), the wife of Zeus. In Utena, Akio is tied to Zeus the philanderer, so Anthy’s name symbolically marries her to Akio. Hera is goddess of women; Anthy is stereotypically feminine in most ways. Hera is goddess of marriage and family; that’s represented as Anthy’s care for animals and roses, since she’s not allowed to care about people personally. (Anthy watering the roses represents her doing Akio’s cultural control work, which is a kind of caring for people. It’s not a caring kind of caring, if you know what I mean.) Hera is jealous and vengeful; Anthy is jealous (for example, of Kanae) and vengeful (for example, toward Nanami). See Zeus and Hera for more on the relationship, and myths - Hera for more correspondences with Anthy.
The Roman equivalent of Hera is Juno. Juno is associated with the planet Saturn, which is Utena’s planet.
Utena and Anthy, whether as protecting divinity and divine princess or as calyx and corolla, are named as parts of a whole. They are complementary: Each one’s strength or character trait is the other’s weakness or opposite trait. It’s sweet to join them into a couple from the start, but look again: Utena is given the heavenly power and the protector roles, while Anthy is given the earthly representation and the beautiful blossom roles. Their names are connected with the system of control and give them conventional male and female roles to play (which in the complicated story they sometimes do and sometimes do not, rather like real people in the real world). It is subversive because Utena is in fact a girl. It also amounts to accepting convention with one modification, which is counter-subversive, failing to escape from entrapping concepts and thereby strengthening the concepts. Utena likes to use its symbols in opposite ways at the same time.
I think there’s more to be found in the wholeness of Utena and Anthy together. They tie in with other central meanings. I talk more about the roses that represent them at the rose emblems of Ohtori Academy.
Jay Scott <jay@satirist.org>
first posted 14 November 2021
updated 21 September 2025