1. The origin of surnames
In ancient times, the Japanese did not have surnames, only first names. Later, with the development of production, especially after entering class society, surnames and surnames first appeared among the ruling class. The clan is a political organization in ancient Japan. Each clan has its own name, which is called "family name". Clan names are named according to the positions held by the clan in the court or the places under the jurisdiction of the clan. For example, the department in charge of sacrificial affairs in the imperial court was called the Jibu clan, and the clan that managed the Jibu clan was called the Jibu clan. The Izumo and Omi clans were the clans that ruled the Izumo and Omi areas. The "surname" in ancient Japan is a title given to a family to indicate the social and political status of the family. There are dozens of surnames, which are similar to titles and are hereditary. There is a clear hierarchy between the surnames. For example: Chen, Lian, Jun, Zhi, etc. In addition to family names and surnames, a new title called Miao appeared in the ninth and tenth centuries AD. Miao means descendant or branch. Miao is the new surname of a family after it separates from the original clan. To put it simply, ancient Japanese surnames had three parts: surname, surname, and Miaoyu, each of which represented a certain meaning. The name of an ancient nobleman is often very long, such as "Fujiwara Courtier Kujo Kanemi". Among them: Fujiwara is the family name, courtier is the surname, Kujo is the Miao character, and Kaneshi is the given name. Later, a large number of new Miao characters were added, and the surname, surname, and Miao characters gradually merged into one, collectively called Miao characters: In today's Japanese, Miao characters mean what we usually call surnames. Among the aristocratic ruling class that has both a family name, a surname and a Miao character, the emperor is an exception. Historically, Japanese emperors did not have surnames, only first names. In ancient times, the emperor was considered to be a descendant of the gods and had supreme power, so there was no need to have a surname. Not only the emperor, but also the children of the empress and Tenlei have no surnames (the emperor's daughter can take her husband's surname when she grows up and gets married).
Family names, surnames and Miao characters are symbols of power, so using these titles in front of the first name was the privilege of the Japanese ruling class at that time. However, the vast majority of working people have never had a surname, only a first name. After the Meiji Restoration (1868), Japan abolished the feudal hierarchy. In the third year of Meiji (1870), the Japanese government decided that all civilians could give themselves surnames. However, due to long-term habits, many people still dare not win by themselves. For this reason, the Japanese government stipulated again in the eighth year of Meiji (1875) that all citizens must have a surname. From then on, every household in Japan had a surname. The son inherited his father's surname, and the wife took her surname. This inheritance has been passed down from generation to generation, and continues to this day.
2. The meaning of surnames
The Japanese are the nation with the most surnames in the world. According to statistics, there are currently about 110,000 surnames in Japan, of which more than 400 are the most common.
Japanese surnames all have certain meanings. Taking the name of a place as a surname is a major feature. For example: some people live at the foot of a mountain, so they use "山下" or "山本" as their surname; some people live next to paddy fields, so they call them "Tianbian". Many Japanese surnames end with the word "mura", such as Nishimura, Okamura, Morizai, Kimura, etc. These surnames were originally derived from place names or village names. In addition, there are many surnames that represent natural phenomena, social life, and ideologies. From the sun, moon, stars and people to flowers, birds, fish and insects, from occupation, residence to religious beliefs, almost everything can be used as a surname. For example: Takasaki means the protruding part of the island, Odai means the square in front of the palace, white birds and little bears are animals; Wakamatsu and Takasugi are plants; Takahashi and Uju represent buildings; Onodera and Saionji represent religious beliefs; Hattori and Qin are the surnames of naturalized people (i.e. immigrants) who settled in Japan from China via Korea in ancient times.
Japanese women must take their husband’s surname after getting married (men who marry into the family will take their wife’s surname). The famous table tennis player Matsuzaki Kimiyo changed her husband's surname to "Kurimoto Kimiyo" after getting married. After World War II, Japan's new civil law stipulated that couples can take the husband's surname or the wife's surname according to the decision made before marriage. However, most Japanese women still follow Japanese custom and take their husband's surname after marriage.
3. The meaning of names
Japanese names also have certain meanings. For example: loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, trust, etc. in a person's name represent ethics and morals; Liang, Ji, Xi, Jia, etc. represent auspiciousness; turtle, crane, pine, Qiandai, etc. represent longevity; Jundai, etc. represent far away Jiu, Guang, Bo, Hao, Yang, etc. represent wisdom. Some words that mean death, illness and evil, such as thin, hungry, skinny, bitter, weird, evil, etc., are taboo among people and are generally not used as names.
Some names have specific meanings, such as: Yamamoto Isoroku. "Fifty-six" was named because his father was fifty-six years old when he was born. Japanese men's names mostly express prowess, British aggression, loyalty, etc. Such as: Toshio Kuroda, Takahiro Okuno, Hidematsu Wada, etc. In addition, ranking as a name is also a characteristic of men's names. Such as: Uren Goro, Shiroyama Saburo, Nitta Jiro (the second son). Men's names are widely used. Generally speaking, there are many names ending with the characters lang, xiong, male, husband, etc., such as: Kobayashi Hideyori, Sanbon Takeo, Kishi Toshio. Before the Meiji Restoration, there were many men called "Heiwei" or "Zuo (Right) Weimon". This type of name originated in ancient times. In the eighth century AD, the emperor's court established five military agencies responsible for protecting the emperor and the court, namely the Weimonfu, the left and right guards and the left and right guards, which were called the five guards in Taiwan. Most of the people who were first called "Bingwei" or "Left (right) Guard" were sergeants serving in various mansions, and some were the direct relatives of these sergeants. However, these old names are rarely used nowadays.
Japanese women’s names are unique and very different from men’s. Women's names generally use words that are beautiful, elegant, and have soft pronunciation, such as Sayuri, Akako, Hanako, and Sawako. In Japanese history, many women were named after the professional titles of their husbands, fathers and other immediate family members. For example, Murasaki Shikibu, the author of the famous Japanese classic novel "The Tale of the Rikishi", was named "Shikibu" after her father's official position, Shikibu Cheng (an official in the Shikibu Province who was in charge of etiquette and other affairs in the ancient court). The names of ancient Japanese women, except those of a few ruling classes such as aristocrats and landowners, were named Annu. Most of them are written in Japanese kana (Japanese letters, divided into two types: katakana and hiragana). This custom is still retained by some women. For example, the name of the movie actor Nakano Ryoko is written as "Nakano Kame Otoko" in Japanese. Among them, "Shangyi" is the kana letter. Ending with the character "子" is a characteristic of modern Japanese female names.
Nowadays, many female names have the character "子" at the end. For example, the names of famous contemporary singers Kato Tokiko and Seri Yoko are like this. In addition, there are also many names ending with the characters such as Jiang, Dai, Mei, and Zhi, such as Ozeki Xingjiang, Ziye Mikiyo, Egami Yumi, Taiyuan Tomie, etc. The name of the Emperor of Japan is "Omyo" or "Taboo". The imperial title is granted by the previous emperor (that is, his father) after the emperor is born. Starting from the fifty-fourth emperor Nimei (reigned from 810 to 850 AD), the imperial name was composed of two characters. The so-called good word. They are auspicious characters carefully selected by famous scholars and court ministers such as Dr. Wen Zhang. For example, Emperor Horikawa's royal name is "Zenni", and Emperor Nimei's royal name is "Masara". The last character of many emperors' royal names is "ren". Later, Emperor Meiji stipulated this custom as a palace system, requiring that the last character of all crown princes' names must use "ren", and also stipulated that all princesses The last character of the name must be "子". For example, the imperial name of Emperor Taisho was Yoshihito; and the imperial name of the current emperor is Hirohito. In addition to his formal royal name, the emperor also has a palace title and a nickname, which are all names the emperor often uses in daily life. For example, the palace names of the Meiji and Taisho emperors were "Unomiya" and "Meigong" respectively. After the emperor's death, he still had a title that was forced upon him by his descendants. According to different meanings, this title can be divided into two types: one is called "posthumous name" and the other is called "chasing number". The former has the beautiful meaning of praising the emperor's merits during his lifetime, but the latter has no such meaning. For example: Shomu, Xiaoqian, and Chengde are the posthumous titles of these three emperors respectively; Daigo, Murakami, and Higashiyama are the posthumous titles of these three emperors. 4. The composition and distinction of surnames and given names. Japanese surnames may have one Chinese character, or several Chinese characters. For example: Mori, Matsumoto, Ukita, Mushakoji, Kankai Yukoji. In ancient times, there were even surnames with seven Chinese characters, such as: Dashenxiatun Cangtianbe. Generally speaking, the most modern Japanese surnames have two Chinese characters, followed by three Chinese characters, then one Chinese character, and very few have more than four Chinese characters.
Japanese names are composed of one kanji or two kanji. For example, [Quanyang] Yi. [Morishita] Yoko, [Tanizaki] Junichiro. [Sakaida] Kakiemon. Most modern Japanese names have two Chinese characters, and names with more than four or five Chinese characters are very rare.
The order of Japanese surnames and given names is the same as that of Chinese Han people, with the surname first and the given name last. However, due to the inconsistency in the number of characters in Japanese names, it brings a lot of trouble to distinguish the first and last names. People from other countries often can't tell which characters are first names and which characters are surnames.
For example, Chinese people generally know that Taihei in Taiping Masahiro is the surname and Masahiro is the given name. However, with a name like "Yagishita Hiro", it is not easy to tell that "Yagishita" is the surname and "Hiro" is the given name. Because "Yagi" is also a surname in Japanese. For the sake of convenience, Japanese people often separate their first and last names in various ways when signing formally. For example, Mori Ogai, Minami Shangqing, and Nikaido Susumu are written as "Moriogai", "Bai Shangqing", and "Nikaido Susumu" respectively. In this way, the surname and first name are clear at a glance.
Five , The pronunciation of Chinese characters for names
There are many pronunciations of Chinese characters in Japanese, including Chinese pronunciation, Wu pronunciation, Tang pronunciation, ancient pronunciation, and popular pronunciation. These pronunciations can be roughly divided into two categories: one is pronunciation. Reading, one is training reading. The so-called phonetic reading is to imitate the pronunciation of ancient Chinese characters, and training reading is based on the pronunciation of Japanese inherent kana letters. Japanese names have phonetic readings, and training readings, as well as phonetic reading and training. For example, [Tanaka] Kakuei has a phonetic pronunciation, [Kurihara] Komaki has a training pronunciation; [Koda] Masuji has a mixed pronunciation of phonetics and training, such as Kawabata Yasunari. The pronunciation of "Kangcheng" is (kuaosaiyi), and the training pronunciation is (yasnari). It is difficult for others to determine which method of talking about some commonly used Japanese characters. There are dozens of pronunciations. For example, the word "Shun" has twenty-three pronunciations. The following three names have different pronunciations for the word "Shun": [Gongzhi] Shunmeiko (Simikuo). , [Ota] Gu Yan (Mi Qibikuo), [Ojing] Junichi (Tosika Zi), there are even cases where the two people have exactly the same surname, but the pronunciation is different. It's called "Qingshui Shun", one is pronounced as (Kyomizi·Osazin) and the other is pronounced as (Kyomizi·Sinaou). This phenomenon of homophones and different pronunciations greatly contributes to the identification of Japan. The pronunciation of people's names causes many difficulties. Not only is the pronunciation of Japanese names complicated, but there is no unified rule. Even Japanese people sometimes have to ask each other questions when they meet for the first time. The pronunciation and writing of names are often indicated when writing names.
6. Translation of names in Chinese characters
Most Japanese names are written in Chinese characters. It must be said that it is a great convenience. When Chinese people translate Japanese names, they usually use the original Japanese characters and pronounce them according to Chinese pinyin. However, sometimes they encounter some difficult problems, such as Japanese ones. "和字". The Japanese people have created some square characters on the basis of borrowing Chinese characters. These characters are called "和字" (or national characters) in Japan. For example, the character "咲" in the name Fujiwara Sakihira. The word "和" has no Chinese pronunciation and cannot be translated into Chinese. At present, there is no consensus on how to translate these words "和" in my country.
The second issue is the issue of simplified characters after the Second World War. Both China and Japan are trying to simplify Chinese characters, but the simplified characters of the two countries are mostly different. For example, the Chinese character "ze" is simplified to "ze", and the Japanese character is simplified to "chi" (three dots of water are added on the left). "Chi (with three dots of water on the left) Den Toshio" should be translated as "Zedeng Toshio" in Chinese, and the Chinese name is simplified to "Hama", and the Japanese name is "Hamada Koichi". , Chinese should be translated as "Suda Xingyi".
Chinese people pronounce Japanese names according to modern Chinese pronunciation, but countries such as Europe and the United States that use Pinyin text transliterate according to Japan's inherent pronunciation. In other words, the pronunciation of the same Japanese name in Chinese and English is completely different. For example: Tanaka is translated as Tanaka in English. If you don't understand Japanese, it is difficult to think of Tanaka. The homophones in Japanese add to the difficulty of translating the name. For example, the two names "Zhengfu" and "Zhengxiong" are both written as Masao in English translation. If you translate the English Masao into Japanese or Chinese, you have to choose at least between Masao and Masao.
In addition, the order of Japanese names is surname first and given name last, while the names in many Western countries have surname last and first name first. For example, "Tanaka Kakuei" is translated as "KakueI. Tanaka" in Western countries, which is Kakuei Tanaka. When translating from English, French, German and other pinyin texts into Chinese, if this happens, the position of the name must be reversed.
7. New trends after the war
In recent decades, Japanese names have been undergoing some changes.
According to statistics, before World War II, there were about 50,000 Chinese characters in Japanese, and people could choose from these 50,000 characters when naming. After the war, the Japanese government implemented reforms and restrictions on Chinese characters in Japanese. In 1946, the government announced 1,850 Chinese characters for use, and in 1951 an additional 92 Chinese characters for personal names were announced. From then on, you can only choose a name for a newborn within these two thousand Chinese characters, otherwise the government will not allow you to register. Through these restrictions, the number of names used has been greatly reduced. Japanese youth born after the war like to use novel names. Some outdated and clichéd words, such as the character "lang" for men and the character "子" for women, are decreasing year by year. Words that express old ideologies such as "turtle" and "crane" have also been despised by people, and some people have replaced these words with other homophones. For example, change "guizi" to "香女" or "佳名宇" (the pronunciation of the three is the same, both are pronounced, kameikou). Others simply apply to the Family Tribunal to completely change their names.
During the Meiji Restoration, especially after World War II, some "foreign names" appeared among people who married foreigners and second- and third-generation Japanese living in Europe and the United States. Some foreign names are written in Japanese Chinese characters, such as [Aikawa] Napoleon, [Akamatsu] Paul (Shu 1"), [Ishikawa] Bunji (9M-5). In addition, some people worship Western culture and even imitate Western names. To write, reverse the order of your last name and first name, such as "Tatsuko Kato" and "Tokuichi Urashima". Kato and Urashima are both surnames, and according to Japanese custom, they should be written in front of the first name. , only women's names can be written in kana letters, and men's names must be written in Chinese characters. However, after the Second World War, some men (mainly intellectuals and artists) did not use Chinese characters when signing their names, and some used kana characters for their surnames. , the first name is pseudonym, such as: Yasushi Inoue; some are just the opposite, the surname is pseudonym, and the first name is Hanzi, such as: Nakanishi Reisan; and some even the first name and surname are pseudonym, such as Yazu Masashi, Ando Keixiu. There has long been a debate in Japan about whether to write names in Chinese characters or kana letters. However, the vast majority of Japanese people believe that it is impossible to immediately cancel all Chinese characters in names and use kana letters in the short term.