The names of the Japanese emperor and the royal family
Imadegawa Kogi·Enter
Originally published in the December 1983 issue of "Foreign History Knowledge", written by Lu Chang
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The Emperor of Japan and his immediate family members (royal family) are collectively referred to as the imperial family. According to the "Imperial Family Model", in addition to the emperor and empress, the current members of the imperial family also include the prince, the emperor's younger brother, and their concubines and children. Members of the royal family have no surnames.
Before the Meiji Restoration in 1868, ordinary civilians in Japan were not allowed to have surnames. Only aristocratic rulers used their family names, titles, official positions, titles, etc. as surnames. Because the emperor has always been revered as a "god", neither the emperor nor the royal family has a surname. After the Meiji Restoration, the Japanese government implemented the Household Registration Law. In order to register a household registration, the household registration was fabricated and civilians were allowed to have surnames. However, as a "god", the emperor and the royal family also have the "Imperial Family Code", which is not within the jurisdiction of the household registration law, so they still have no surnames to this day.
The names of the royal family members have a characteristic, that is, the male characters are named "Ren" and the female characters are named "子". For example, Emperor Meiji’s name was Mutsuhito, Emperor Taisho’s name was Yoshihito, Emperor Showa’s name was Hirohito, Crown Prince’s name was Akihito (now Emperor Heisei – Hanxian), the eldest grandson of the emperor was named Naruhito (now Crown Prince Naruhito – Hanxian); the imperial daughter They were named Chengzi, Hezi, Houzi, and Guizi, and the imperial granddaughter was named Qingzi. The names of ancient emperors were very long, some as long as more than ten characters. It is said that from about the 9th century AD onwards, Emperor Nimei (the 54th emperor, named Shoryō) had two characters in his name, and since Emperor Seiwa (the 56th emperor, named Weijin), most of his names had the character "jin". . By the time of the 122nd Emperor Meiji, the "Status for the Birth of Imperial Children" clearly stipulated that all princes should bear the character "ren" and all princesses should bear the character "子".