In ancient Asia, according to Henshall, peaches were far more common than cherries and had associations with fertility! Relative to peaches, cherries seemed like “babies,” Henshall says. I’m sure he means that in terms of size; it’s not as if peaches lead to pregnancy, which makes women give birth to cherries! But this is a little confusing; the term 赤ん坊 (akanbō: baby, red + term of endearment) derives from the redness of newborns’ faces. And perhaps that redness reminds people of cherries….
Anyway, associating cherries with babies (in whichever way) affected the etymology. In 桜, the 木 clearly means “tree.” The part on the right used to be 嬰, a non-Jōyō character meaning “baby (girl).” Since 貝 means “shell,” doubling the 貝 yielded a string of pearls! So 貝貝 concisely compared a plump baby girl to a string of pearls! That’s how Henshall has it, anyway. According to another theory, the double shell does mean a string of pearls, but the 嬰 came to mean “baby” because mothers held babies just below the strings of pearls around their necks. (Did new mothers in ancient Asia dress up to that degree?)
Combining 木 and 嬰 resulted in the following meaning: “tree that produces a string of small round things.” Not pearls and not babies but rather cherries!
For one more bit of strangeness regarding cherries versus peaches, check out this breakdown:
桜桃 (ōtō: cherry tree; cherry) cherry tree + peach tree
Although the “ingredients” might make you think that this word refers to a hybrid fruit (e.g., a pluot), 桜桃 can mean either “cherry tree” or “cherry.” The second kanji has the kun-yomi of momo, which you may know as the way to say “peach” (the fruit, not the tree). We talked about the 兆 (seen here as part of 桃) not long ago.
