The word behind our name
共々
Together; alike; along with. Both of us, all of us, at once.
Together
Two hands, lifting one thing between them.
Again
A mark that repeats the character before it.
Together, all of us
“Together”, said twice, so nobody is left out.
Two hands, doubled
共 is an old character. Its lower part comes from 廾, a picture of two hands, and its earliest forms show them raised together, holding something up between them. One thing, lifted by more than one pair of hands. Long before it meant “together” in the abstract, it meant that shared weight.
The mark after it, 々, has no sound of its own. It simply repeats the character before it, and typesetters nickname it noma, because it looks like the katakana ノ and マ written as one. Japanese uses it everywhere. 人 is a person and 人々 is people; 時 is time and 時々 is sometimes. Doubling a word widens it, from one to many, from once to again and again.
Said aloud, the second half softens, the way doubled Japanese words often do: hito, bito; toki, doki; tomo, domo. So 共々 is “together”, widened. Not only the two of us, but all of us, alike.
A word that never travels alone
In everyday Japanese, 共々 rarely stands by itself. It comes at the end of a phrase and folds someone else into what was just said. A New Year's card doesn't only send the writer's good wishes; it sends them 家族共々, together with the whole family. At a wedding, the closing thanks is often given 両家共々, on behalf of both families at once.
It's a small piece of grammar doing a large piece of work. It insists that gratitude, a wish or a celebration never belongs to one person only. Say it, and the moment widens to include whoever stood beside you when it happened.
Put 共々 at the end of a sentence, and nobody in it is named alone.
The bill, after the dinner
A meal shared among friends is, for as long as it lasts, a single thing: one table, one conversation, one evening nobody had alone. It's only afterwards, when the bill lands in the middle of the table, that it threatens to become several things. My share, your share, who had the extra glass, who owes what.
That's the moment 共々 refuses to allow, and why it gave this app its name. The arithmetic can be exact, down to the last krone or the last yen, without the evening splitting into separate accounts. The meal was shared. So, the word insists, is the settling of it.
It helps that 共々 begins with the same sound as 友, tomo, a friend. It's a different character with a different root, but close enough to the ear that saying one quietly calls up the other. Friends, together: said almost in one breath, because in practice they usually are.
Not a debt between two people. One evening, held by more than one pair of hands.
See how Tomodomo splits a bill