In Chinese, the war is most commonly known as the War of Resistance Against Japan (simplified Chinese: ????; traditional Chinese: ????; pinyin: K?ng R? Zh?nzh?ng), and also known as the Eight Years' War of Resistance (????), simply War of Resistance (??), or Second Sino-Japanese War (???????).

In Japan, the name Japan-China War (????, Nitch? Sens??) is most commonly used because of its perceived objectivity. When the war began in July 1937 near Beijing, the government of Japan used The North China Incident (????, Kahoku Jihen), and with the outbreak of the Battle of Shanghai the following month, it was changed to The China Incident (????, Shina Jihen).

The word incident (??, jihen) was used by Japan, as neither country had made a formal declaration of war. Japan wanted to avoid intervention by other countries, particularly the United Kingdom and the United States, which were her primary source of petroleum; the United States was also her biggest supplier of steel. American President Franklin D. Roosevelt would have been forced to impose an embargo on Japan in observance of the American Neutrality Acts had the fighting been formally escalated to 'general war'.

In Japanese propaganda however, the invasion of China became a "holy war" (seisen), the first step of the Hakko ichiu (eight corners of the world under one roof). In 1940, prime minister Konoe thus launched the League of Diet Members Believing the Objectives of the Holy War. When both sides formally declared war in December 1941, the name was replaced by Greater East Asia War (?????, Dait?a Sens?).

Although the Japanese government still uses the term "China Incident" in formal documents, because the word Shina is considered a derogatory word by China, the media in Japan often paraphrase with other expressions like The Japan-China Incident (???? [Nikka Jihen], ???? [Nisshi Jihen], which were used by media even in the 1930s.

In addition, the name Second Sino-Japanese War is not usually used in Japan, as the First Sino-Japanese War (????, Nisshin-Sens?), between Japan and the Qing Dynasty in 1894 is not regarded to have obvious direct linkage to the second, between Japan and the Republic of China.

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