As I’ve said over and over again, I’ve been studying the Geisha culture for about 8 months now, I’m sure I’ll still be studying them months if not years in the future. My next greatest challenge is being able to identify Geisha by name, to help me with this I’m going to make a guide to geisha by their pictures, name, and Okiya. This is for my own personal use, but you can use it as well, all the pictures were retrieved from either Google images or Tumblr. If you don’t want to use it that’s fine, you get to browse through several pictures of gorgeous geisha and Maiko. For the ones who’s names I know but who’s Okiya I don’t exactly know or if they are retired or not, they will be at the bottom

I’m going to start this in Gion Kobu, so Ge

isha are actually called Geiko

Okiya: Arai

Geiko: Mameji (She is the Okaa-san of the okiya)

Maiko: Mameroku

Debuted: May 16th 2011

Retired:

Mamesada: can’t find picture, if you have one, I would be happy to post it and give you credit~

Mamesato:

Mameaki: Can’t find picture

Mamesaku:

Mamefusa:

Mametomi:

(Mametomi and Mamefusa)

Mametomi and Mameroku!

Okiya: Bi no Yae

Geiko:

Makoto: (One of the most famous Geisha in Kyoto)

Mari:

Mao:

Maori:

She’s in the middle ^^

Makino:

Maiko:

Masaki

Debuted in 2011!

Retired:

Mayuno Can’t find picture

Marino Another I can’t find a picture of D;

Marie

She quit very soon after her debut, so there aren’t many pictures of her available.

Mahiro

Okiya: Fukushima

Geiko:

Ayano (She’s very popular, and it’s easy to see why~)

Ayano as Maiko with A Geiko named Momiyuki

Ayano and Maiko Fumino are up front. The young Shikomi behind them will soon move on to become Maiko Kiyono. Technically these are all three active Geisha and Maiko of Fukushima Okiya out of their full regalia. ^^

Young Ayano as a first year Maiko~ Look how young she looks! She would only be about 15 or 16 years old here

Maiko:

Fumino

Ayano is in the front and Fumino is in the back ^^

Kiyono (She debuted pretty recently after I had already done a fair amount of research on the Maiko and Geiko lifestyle and was the first recent debut pictures I had seen, so she holds a special place in my heart~)

(This is one of her pictures from her debut, she was so cute and giggly, this was the only picture where she didn’t have a laugh going on)

She’s in the pink kimono in the back

Because she is so freshly debuted, her misedashi was in late April of 2013 there aren’t a whole lot of pictures of her that I can find of her.

Retired:

Maiko Kotono: She actually debuted with Ayano but had quit a few months after her debut.

Ayano with Kotono

I will be posting more in another part, starting with Hiroshimaya Okiya~