Editorial note: This resource has been compiled out of the necessity when studying myths and mythemes, to scrutinize the names of people, heroes, characters, place-names, etc. In doing so, we may place many of the myths in proper context, and often in the proximate location of origin or sphere of influence or occurrence.
Japan’s top 100 most common family names
America may have around a million surnames and Finland the most in the world in proportion to its population, but with more than 100,000 family names now in use in Japan, this country puts China’s few thousand and Korea’s mere 200 firmly in the name-game shade.
Here, in descending order, are the top 100 most common Japanese family names these days — followed by a list of the five most commonly occurring ones in each of the country’s 47 prefectures.
- Sato
- Suzuki
- Takahashi
- Tanaka
- Watanabe
- Ito
- Yamamoto
- Nakamura
- Kobayashi
- Kato
- Yoshida
- Yamada
- Sasaki
- Yamaguchi
- Saito
- Matsumoto
- Inoue
- Kimura
- Hayashi
- Shimizu
- Yamazaki
- Mori
- Abe
- Ikeda
- Hashimoto
- Yamashita
- Ishikawa
- Nakajima
- Maeda
- Fujita
- Ogawa
- Goto
- Okada
- Hasegawa
- Murakami
- Kondo
- Ishii
- Saito (different kanji)
- Sakamoto
- Endo
- Aoki
- Fujii
- Nishimura
- Fukuda
- Ota
- Miura
- Fujiwara
- Okamoto
- Matsuda
- Nakagawa
- Nakano
- Harada
- Ono
- Tamura
- Takeuchi
- Kaneko
- Wada
- Nakayama
- Ishida
- Ueda
- Morita
- Hara
- Shibata
- Sakai
- Kudo
- Yokoyama
- Miyazaki
- Miyamoto
- Uchida
- Takagi
- Ando
- Taniguchi
- Ohno
- Maruyama
- Imai
- Takada
- Fujimoto
- Takeda
- Murata
- Ueno
- Sugiyama
- Masuda
- Sugawara
- Hirano
- Kojima
- Otsuka
- Chiba
- Kubo
- Matsui
- Iwasaki
- Sakurai
- Kinoshita
- Noguchi
- Matsuo
- Nomura
- Kikuchi
- Sano
- Onishi
- Sugimoto
- Arai
:::
In addition, see this list from Yahoo! answers:
川 (kawa) : river
橋 (hashi) : bridge
井 (i) : well
田 (ta, da) : rice paddy
原(hara, bara, wara) : plain
野 (no) : field
芝 (shiba) : lawn
藤 (fuji) : wisteria
松 (matsu) : pine tree
杉 (sugi) : Japanese cedar
竹 (take) : bamboo
木 (ki) : tree
林 (hayashi) : woods, copse
森 (mori) : forest
坂 (saka) : slope
岡 (oka) : hill
山 (yama) : mountain
池 (ike) : pond
沼 (numa) : swamp, lake
沢 (zawa) : swamp, marsh
崎 (saki) : promontory
石 (ishi) : stone
岩 (iwa) : rock
谷 (tani) : valley
浜 (hama) : beach
島 (shima) : island
村 (mura) : village
里 (sato) : small village
戸 (to) : gate
宮 (miya) : palace
神 (kami) : god
The following are a less common in surnames :
土 (do, tsuchi) : earth
桜 (sakura) : cherry tree
菊 (kiku) : chrysanthemum
寺 (tera) : temple
神 (kan, kami) : deity
堀 (hori) : moat, canal
江 (e) : inlet, bay
滝 (taki) : waterfall
泉 (izumi) : spring
As for adjectives, the most common are probably these ones :
高 (taka) : high
大 (oo) : big
子 (ko) : small
中 (naka) : middle
上 (ue, kami) : above
下 (shita, shimo) : under
富 (tomi) : rich
細 (hoso) : narrow
広 (hiro) : broad
長 (naga) : long
永 (naga) : eternal
丸 (maru) : round
黒 (kuro) : black
白 (shira, shiro) : white
青 (ao) : green, blue
吉 (yoshi) : good
福 (fuku) : lucky
Note that some nouns are used like adjectives, as they characterize a geographic location :
本 (moto) : origin
口 (guchi) : mouth, entry
熊 (kuma) : bear
稲 (ina) : rice-plant
酒 (saka) : alcohol
金 (kane) : money
Interestingly, some of the most common names are some kind of exceptions :
For example, all the names that use the “ON reading” :
斉藤 : Saitou
左藤 : Satou
伊藤 : Itou
武藤 : Mutou
加藤 : Katou
後藤 : Gotou
The “-tou” suffix always means “wisteria”, but the prefix doesn’t really mean anything. I heard that these are descendants or partisans of the Fujiwara (藤原) clan, and that the prefix was used to differentiate the various branches, maybe by regional location based on the old feudal domain names. E.g. 武 (Musashi) in West Tokyo, 伊for either 伊予 (Iyo = Ehime prefecture) or 伊賀 Iga, in Kansai).
Other names use kanji found almost exclusively in those names :
渡辺 : Watanabe => across the area (?)
鈴木 : Suzuki => bell tree (strange name)
佐賀 : Saga => Probably from the region’s name.
三宅 : Miyake => three houses
20 most common Japanese family names
(佐藤)Satō
(鈴木)Suzuki
(高橋)Takahashi
(田中)Tanaka
(渡辺)Watanabe
(伊藤)Itō
(山本)Yamamoto
(中村)Nakamura
(小林)Kobayashi
(斎藤)Saitō
(加藤)Katō
(吉田)Yoshida
(山田)Yamada
(佐々木)Sasaki
(山口)Yamaguchi
(松本)Matsumoto
(井上)Inoue
(木村)Kimura
(林)Hayashi
(清水)Shimizu
:::
55 surnames and their meanings:
AKIYAMA Japanese
Means “autumn mountain” from Japanese aki “autumn” and yama “mountain, hill”.
Means “base of Mount Fuji” from fuji for the famous mountain called Mount Fuji and moto meaning “base”.
From i meaning “this” and to meaning “wisteria”, the latter syllable indicating a connection to the Fujiwara (“wisteria field”) clan.
From ka meaning “add” and to meaning “wisteria”, the latter syllable indicating a connection to the Fujiwara (“wisteria field”) clan.
Means “base of the shrine” in Japanese, from miya “shrine” and moto “base”… [more]
From sai meaning “correct” and to meaning “wisteria”, the latter syllable indicating a connection to the Fujiwara (“wisteria field”) clan.
From sa meaning “help” and to meaning “wisteria”, the latter syllable indicating a connection to the Fujiwara (“wisteria field”) clan.
Means “(dweller in the) middle of rice fields”, from ta “rice field”, and naka “in”.
Means “forever young” from the Japanese waka “young” and hisa “longevity, ancient”.
From yama meaning “mountain” and ta meaning “rice field” (t changes to d after a vowel).
From a very common place name meaning “mountain entrance”, from yama “mountain”, and guchi “mouth”… [more]
Means “base of the mountain” from yama, meaning “mountain”, and moto, meaning “base, origin”.
1 Satou
佐藤
2 Suzuki
鈴木
3 Takahashi
高橋
4 Tanaka
田中
5 Watanabe
渡辺
6 Itou
伊藤/伊東
7 Nakamura
中村
8 Yamamoto
山本
9 Kobayashi
小林
10 Saitou
斉藤/斎藤
JAPANESE MYTHOLOGY & FOLKLORE 