surnames

Japan Supreme Court rules it’s constitutional to require married men and women have same surname

For the second time in less than a decade, Supreme Court says Mr. and Mrs. must match.

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Should people in Japan be allowed to keep their surnames after getting married, survey asks

Right now, getting married in Japan means someone is changing their name.

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Government statistics reveal the most common Japanese surnames, makes Mr. Sato sad

Perhaps you would too if you share the same surname with 1.8 million people.

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On a small island of 570 people, 92 are named “Amano” But, why?!

When we think of an Asian country where many people have the same last name, Korea usually comes to mind. With just 250 surnames in use, half the Korean population bears one of three names: Kim, Lee or Park. Compare that to Japan that has over 100,000 surnames. So when we hear of a place in Japan where over 20 percent of the people share the same last name, it’s enough to pique our curiosity.

Meet the Amanos: Amano-san the ferry port manager and Amano-san the grocer; Amano-san who owns the liquor shop and Amano-san who serves curry lunches; Amano-san the plumber and Amano-san the carpenter. They’re all different people who live on the same small island and who, believe it or not, are not related.

How can this be? We bet you can’t guess why!

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