Abbreviated and contracted words are a common feature of Japanese. Long words are often contracted into shorter forms, which then become the predominant forms. For example, the University of Tokyo, in Japanese Tōkyō Daigaku (東京大学) becomes Tōdai (東大), and "remote control", rimōto kontorōru (リモートコントロール), becomes rimokon (リモコン). Names are also contracted in this way. For example, Takuya Kimura, in Japanese Kimura Takuya, an entertainer, is referred to as Kimutaku.

The names of some very familiar companies are also contractions. For example, Toshiba, Japanese Tōshiba (東芝), is a contraction or portmanteau of Tōkyo Shibaura (東京芝浦), and Nissan, Japanese Nissan (日産), is a contraction of Nippon Sangyō (日本産業).

The contractions may be commonly used, or they may be specific to a particular group of people. For example, the "Kokuritsu Kankyō Kenkyūjo" (国立環境研究所, National Institute for Environmental Sciences of Japan, NIES) is known as Kanken (環研) by its employees, but this terminology is not familiar to most Japanese.