Fukuzawa passed away of a stroke in his home located on Mita Campus on February 3, 1901. He was 66 years old. February 3, the anniversary of his passing, is at times referred to as "Yukichi-ki" or "The Mourning of the Snow Pond." According to one explanation, this custom only began recently, with the phrase first used around 1963.
"Yukichi (lit. Snow Pond)" was Fukuzawa's pen name. Scholars believe that Fukuzawa felt pen names, a popular trend at the time, held authoritarian connotations and, in response, flouted the fad by purposefully using a homophone of his first name, keeping the same pronunciation but changing the Chinese characters to "snow pond."
However, it remains unclear whether "Yukichi" is even the correct way to read the Chinese characters, and his personal seal engraved with the name has since been damaged and rendered illegible, leading historians to speculate that at some point Fukuzawa abandoned the moniker altogether. Coincidentally, the name "Snow Pond" suits Fukuzawa, a man who both entered and left the world during winter. The name lives on as a possible addition to the lexicon and stories of the teacher who was known to carry himself with a rustic flair.