Etymology of Go

"Go" comes from Japanese reading of go 碁 which is the 呉音 (Go-on) pronunciation of the Chinese character qi 棋. 碁 is an itaiji (異體字, variation) of 棋.

In Chinese, wei 圍 means "to surround" and qi 棋 (see ki character) means "pieces (of a board game)" (a term also used for Xiangqi, Fangqi and many other forms of Chinese board games); weiqi is thus "the game using pieces to surround".

囲 is the Japanese simplification of 圍. It is used in conjunction with the go character 碁 (棋, 棊 and 碁 are 異體字 (itaiji), variations of the same character) to refer to the game in Japanese, Igo (In Japan, one-character Go 碁 and two-character Igo 囲碁 are used interchangeably as the name of the game.

See also names for go in other languages.