About the only other name for Judo ever was Kodokan Jujutsu. Other than that Judo is usually the only name given to it, though some clubs may put more or less emphasis on sport than self defence (most are now sport based only, with the occasional forray into using Judo for self defence) Judo comes from Japan, developed in the late 1800s by Jigoro Kano, a Japanese school teacher, who wanted to update the training from jujutsu to something that could be practiced safely at full speed on a resisting partner. This was something of a change from the norm at the time, which seemed to consist largely of paired kata with little full-speed training. Judo training methods allowed students to learn what it feels like to actually throw someone really hard into the ground without badly breaking the opponent. If you look at modern martial art training methods, a lot have taken inspiration from Judo and started using fairly thick mats and full-power throwing onto the back. It's far from a unique training method any more, and a lot of the more modern styles of jujutsu have adopted it as their training method, making them resemble original Kodokan Jujutsu/Judo.
Sometimes I read Aegis' posts and think, 'Hey, that's what I would've written!' Other times I'm just glad he got there first. Why am I one of the Judo mod's again?
A thread quite recently, right here on MAP: http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1673&highlight=Kosen Cheers.
