San - Definition and Overview

• San (or santo) is the Spanish word for saint, as in San Francisco (Saint Francis) and San Diego. San is used as a title only, whereas santo is the regular usage (as in «él es un santo» or "he is a saint") or a title (as in Santo Domingo).
• San is another name for the Bushmen, an ethnic group living in South Africa and Botswana.
• In computing, a SAN is a storage area network.
• San is the fictional girl raised by a wolf goddess in Miyazaki Hayao's animated movie Princess Mononoke - the movie's title is a name by which she is also known.
• San is also a river in Southern Poland.
• San has various meanings in Japanese, some of which appear in English:
  • Following a personal name, it is a title, akin to Mr., Ms, Miss, and Mrs. For example, Tanaka-san. The title is not gender specific and can follow just the surname, given name, or the entire full name. Other titles include -chan and -kun, which have different levels of formality.
  • Following the name of a mountain, it means Mount. For example, Fuji-san.