Here is the Chapter 3 Discussion Thread!
We have a vocab sheet .
Shoutout to @Sarabrina for starting this book club and @frayderike for starting us off with such a lovely vocab sheet.
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Page 13
出会えたこと
Anyone have insight on the potential + past + こと construction here? Best guess: “[the matter of] being able to meet by chance” as opposed to simple 出会うこと of “[the event of] meeting by chance”
If potential is “to be able to meet”, then I’d say past potential would be “to have been able to meet”.
This is conveyed as a concept of “to have been able to meet” by having it modify the noun こと (which is used for a “conceptual thing”). This then allows the concept to be used as the が-marked subject (since only a noun can be the subject).
My crops have been watered and my skin cleared after the sheer heartwarming-ness of this chapter. I missed how he got his name the first time I tried to skim this chapter last year.
So the ふく is definitely from 幸福 (happiness/blessedness), but what about the まる? I had assumed this part was 丸 (circle) because he’s a chunky kitty. However I saw this listed under 丸 on jisho.org
- suffix for ship names; suffix for names of people (esp. infants); suffix for names of swords, armour, musical instruments, etc.; suffix for names of dogs, horses, etc.
So ふくまる is like “hap-baby/happibaby?” 
Any other insights, nuances, opinions, thoughts on the namegiving?
Love the way he got his name!
According to this book Things Japanese - Wikisource, the free online library “The probability is that two distinct words— maru and maro —have flowed into one, and so got confused. […] The word maro, on the other hand, is an archaic term of endearment.”
So it could also possibly be 幸福 combined with a suffix of endearement. 
I was thinking it was ふく just as the noun 福 rather than 幸福.
Jisho has 福 as
Noun
- good fortune; happiness; blessing; good luck
Given that it reminded me of maneki-neko and he’s kind of spotty in a similar way. So I came up with lucky round or in the more causal baby talk way ‘my lucky chunky floof’.
that’s so much cuter than my idea
Although seeing three of those 4 end in “y” makes me want to say “my lucky chunky floofy” <3
Gah the cuteness just doesn’t end 
and now I can finally stop calling Fukumaru “the cat” in these threads 
I assumed this too! Like he’s a little ball of happiness/fortune but knowing how much word play there is in Japanese, it’s probably a mixture of round 丸 and suffix 丸
Any ideas about the first names old man is mentioning?
ブチタ - I feel like I’ve heard this before but I don’t remember / don’t know what it could mean
マメ助 - I found that まめ can be used as a prefix for “miniature; tiny”, so maybe the meaning of this one is something like “tiny helper” or “tiny rescuer” (like Fukumaru being someone who saves old man from being lonely?)
おむすび - pretty sure this means rice ball (similar to onigiri), with that black spot on his head, Fukumaru’s head does look like a riceball!
ブチタ seems to be related to Fukumaru’s spots (kanji 斑). I’m not sure if it’s a similar cliche to name a pet “Spot” in Japan.