Toyota Maru (1990) [pdf]
ayuba.fr
ayuba.fr
So I finally decided to look it up and wikipedia to the rescue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_ship-naming_conventio...
It (丸, maru) means circle, there are many good theories as to why it is attached to ship names, however by this point it has been done long enough that it is mainly tradition.