In May 1934, when he was 43, Master Otsuka started his own school called the Dai Nippon Karate Shinko Club (Dai = great, Nippon = Japan, Shinko = to promote, bu = martial, kai = association). Here would be the centre of Otsuka's teaching of his new systems of Wado-Ryu Karate-Jutsu and Wado-Ryu-Jujutsu kenpo, merging Okinawan karate with traditional Japanese Jujitsu. 

In 1940, when Otsuka was requested to submit an official name by the Butoku-kai in Kyoto he registered the name Wado Kai. This ceremony took place together with Shotokan, Shito Ryu and Goju Ryu. This occasion is regarded as the first official naming of Karate styles.

Otsuka originally devised the name for his system as Shinshu Wado Jujitsu. This was later shortened to Wado. The term wa means "peace" or "harmony", but it also represents Japan as a shortened form of Showa, which was the name for the era of Emperor Hirohito. Do means "the way". By putting the two together you get the way of peace and/or harmony.

(The dove is also the messenger of Hachiman,the Japanese god of war)

Originally the style was referred to as Wado Kai which is "Wado house or group" but upon becoming a hereditary system, the name became Wado Ryu which is "Wado style."