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人造砥石 - Various types exist: rough, medium, synthetic aotoshi (‘green brick’), etc.
Artificial Whetstone - Mainly designed for use with household tools: kitchen knives, scissors, etc.
合砥 - Natural finishing stone. Comes in various colours, depending on the area of origin.
Awasedo - Suitable for finishing planes, chisels and kitchen knives.
巣板 - Hard natural stone marked with stains and small holes left by gases which escaped during formation.
Suita - Certain specially named patterns exist: ‘renge’ = ‘lotus blossom’; ‘momiji’ = ‘maple leaves’; ’sunashi’ = ‘without holes’.
　 - Mainly for use with planes and chisels. Some softer varieties may be used for kitchen knives and engraving knives.
並砥/浅黄 - Hard, fine-grained natural stone, generally pale blue or dark grey in appearance. ‘Asagi’ tends to be even harder than ‘namito’.
Namito / Asagi - Mainly for use with planes and chisels; generally too hard for kitchen knives. Certain areas produce softer varieties.
　 - Requires the use of a ‘nagura’ or correcting stone.
　 - Recommended for experienced users.
戸前/色物 - Medium to hard stone, yellow-brown or reddish purple in appearance.
Tomae / Iromono - Mainly for use with engraving knives and kitchen knives. ‘Iromono’ tends to be quite soft and therefore unlikely to be suitable for planes and chisels.
合さ/からす/うろこ - Natural finishing stone from the ‘aisa’ rock layer, sometimes with special patterns: ‘karasu’ = ‘crows’; ‘uroko’ = ‘fish scales’.
Aisa / Karasu / Uroko - For use with planes, chisels or kitchen knives.
　 - The particular hardness of 'karasu' makes it especially suitable for use with razors. ‘Uroko’ tends to be softer.
内曇 - Cloudy grey finishing/polishing stone.
Uchigomori - Mainly used for bringing out the wavy or ‘water-like’ pattern on swords and other blades.
青砥 - Gentle natural finishing stone.
Aoto / Blue Stone - For finishing kitchen knives or touching up planes and chisels between proper sharpenings.
門前砥 - Very soft natural stone.
Monzen - More for polishing than sharpening. Suitable for adding colour to swords and other blades.
名倉 - Small correcting stone used to even out bumps and wear on hard sharpening stones.
Nagura - May also be used as a file.