Ramen Lo Mein lou1 min6, part 2

Ha! That's very flattering.

 

I can't claim to have a definitive answer to this, but Wikipedia seems to agree with my assumption — which also harkens back to our previous email about katakana + body lotion — that the contemporary prevalence of ラーメン as the preferred name and orthography for these noodles was fixed in place by the release of the first instant ramen in 1958, Nissin's "Chicken Ramen " (チキンラーメン) and all the products that followed.

If I understand correctly, previous names such as 支那そば (shina soba) were falling out of favor by this time for a convergence of post-imperial reasons: for some, 支那 had already become taboo, while for others there was a desire for a Japanese name for what had clearly become a Japanese food, origins notwithstanding. This also mitigated against the wide use of 拉麺. While it's not impossible even today to see these orthographic choices here and there, they are unusual (see Jim Breen's comments on the n-grams).

 

A final factor that cannot be ignored is that both visually and auditorily, ラーメン balanced well with チキン and with インスタント (insutanto), the katakana terms it was most associated via Nissin and its competitors. Sometimes it's good to have a contrast, but sometimes it's good to lean into the modern, international/cosmopolitan vibes of katakana.

 

Hope that makes sense