Bleach title speculation

[silindro]

It's been especially bothering me lately. Just why is it called Bleach? I can't find a good answer anywhere, so I've come up with my own theory. Feel free to bash it.

As many of you know, the Japanese spelling in katakana for Bleach is 'buri-chi'. Sure, that sounds out as 'bleach'. But what if it was another one of those terrible translation mistakes, only on a larger scale? Buri-chi also sounds out as 'breach' which I think would make more sense given the fact that they've had to breach a ton of things in the series. Walls, barriers, Soul Society...

Any thoughts?

[gdo01]

It's been especially bothering me lately. Just why is it called Bleach? I can't find a good answer anywhere, so I've come up with my own theory. Feel free to bash it.
As many of you know, the Japanese spelling in katakana for Bleach is 'buri-chi'. Sure, that sounds out as 'bleach'. But what if it was another one of those terrible translation mistakes, only on a larger scale? Buri-chi also sounds out as 'breach' which I think would make more sense given the fact that they've had to breach a ton of things in the series. Walls, barriers, Soul Society...
Any thoughts?
Every piece of merchandise says "BLEACH" pretty clearly and the subbers made no change to the title sequence or the manga cover that says "BLEACH" prominently. Theories include

Ichigo's bleached looking hair
Purifying of hollows (bleaching them of sins)
The bleaching of Rukia's robe when she lost her powers

[ManjiSTP]

Uh oh. This is an frequent subject for threads. There should be at least one or two threads already quite developed on this topic.

The basic answer is that Bleach means "to turn white" and that is what happens to Ichigo, what with his hollow side and all. Any ideas based around cleansing are largely unfounded since most dictionary definitions don't mention bleach being a cleansing agent. There's also the more vague connection to Nirvana's debut album. Since KT is a part of Japan's alternative culture and since this album is symbolic of alternative culture, a connection is supported pretty well.

The hair thing is also a weird addiction for a lot of people, but they all miss the point that bleached hair only goes orange, like Ichigo's, if you screw it up. It's meant to go bright yellow (like a super-saiyajin, let's say) or even white. Orange is an undesirable result caused by being impatient.