Samurai Sword Information

Samurai

The Samurai were once proud warriors in Japan that started out in as early as 764 A.D and in 1868 A.D the Samurai class was abolished. Ninja's however opposed the Samurai & they didn't take to the honour side of things like the Samurai did. For the Ninja Sword it was about the same size as the katana but a straight blade. Both warriors in fact (in their peak) were highly skilled killing machines.
As for the Samurai swords, there was 3 main classifications:

When people refer to a Samurai sword they most likely mean the katana sword.

The Katana

Katana (刀) is the word for "sword" in the Japanese language. It is also used specifically for a type of Japanese backsword or longsword (大刀 daitō) in use after the 1400s: a curved, single-edged sword traditionally used by the samurai. This article refers to both. Pronounced [kah-tah-nah] in the kun'yomi (Japanese reading) of the kanji 刀, the on'yomi (Chinese language reading) is tō. While the word has no separate plural form in Japanese, it has been adopted as a loan word by the English language, where it is pluralized as either "katanas" or "katana."

The katana was typically paired with the wakizashi or shōtō, a similarly made but shorter sword, both worn by the members of the warrior class. It could also be worn with the tantō, an even smaller similarly shaped blade. The two weapons together were called the daishō which literally means big-small, and represented the social power and personal honor of the samurai. The long blade was used for open combat, while the shorter blade was considered a side arm, more suited for stabbing, close combat (such as indoors), and seppuku, a form of ritual suicide.

Click here for information on the history of the Samurai