This maple, and a few other of its era, demonstrate a fascinating shift in the word "shidare." The Hiragana given with the cultivar shows that a totally different spelling, 獨摇, was sitll pronounced しだれ (shidare). This is is spite of a direct reading of the kanji, which would be Dokuyō, meaning "Swaying alone." In this way, we see that 枝垂, Shidare or "Drooping Branches" was already the meaning of the other spelling. This is an example of ateji, where a phonetic interpretation is applied to a kanji regardless of its normal meaning or interpretation. As time went on, the horticultural meaning of 枝垂 became prevalent, and it completely replaced this earier ateji. (ED)