In 1870, in order to meet the needs of conscription, taxation and household registration. Emperor Meiji issued the Order on Civilians Allowing Miao Wen, which allowed all Japanese, including civilians who were not allowed to have surnames before. Japanese civilians who are used to not having surnames are not enthusiastic about it, so the work of creating surnames is slow. Therefore, in 1875, Emperor Meiji issued an order that Miao Wen, a civilian, must be addressed, stipulating that all Japanese people must use their surnames.
In Japanese, Miao (also written as "name") means "surname" in Chinese; The Chinese name is Qian. There is also the word surname in Japanese, which refers to clans, including Genji, Shi Ping and Fujiwara, that is, clans that once held political power in ancient times.
After the Japanese get married, because the law prohibits the husband and wife from having different surnames, the wife generally changes her husband's surname, and if she is an adopted son-in-law, she changes her maiden name.
In addition, the Japanese emperor has no surname. It is estimated that at least 90% of surnames currently used by Japanese residents come from the period after Meiji Restoration. However, this figure currently lacks authoritative statistics.
Common surnames:
Tanaka (たなか) Zhongshan (なかやま) Yamaguchi (やまぐち) Yamada (やまだ)
(ぃとぅ) Takeno (たけの) Takenaka (たけなか) Sasaki (さたけけ)