Japanese first and last names.

The population of Japan is 120 million. How many surnames do Japanese have? According to relevant records, China has about 120,000 surnames, which is12 times more than China, and it is probably the country with the most surnames in the world. Why are there so many surnames in Japan? This is closely related to the origin of Japanese surnames.

Before the Meiji Restoration, there were very few surnames in Japan. Only the nobles and upper-class people had surnames, while ordinary people had no surnames. In the eighth year of Meiji (1875), the Japanese government wanted to rectify the household registration, so it issued an order that Miao characters must be given, forcing ordinary people to have surnames, or they would be punished. This time, ordinary people with low educational level are anxious. Everyone didn't know their surname at the moment, so they had to find a literate monk or village official to give themselves a surname. A monk asked, "Where do you live?" "I live at the foot of the mountain." "Well, let's call it Yamashita." In this way, a campaign to create surnames has created more than 30 thousand surnames. Some people are even given some messy surnames, such as "onion root, pig head, pig stock, cow dung house, dog breeding, horseshoe, mosquito claw, dog eating" and so on, which are really varied and strange.

There are many heavy surnames in Japan, and the surnames of Japanese people are just like the five surnames "Zhang Wang, Li Zhao and Liu are everywhere" circulating in China. There are also ten surnames in Japan, namely: Sato, Saito, Suzuki, Tanaka, Watanabe, Kobayashi, Nakamura, Ito, Gao Qiao and Yamamoto. There is also a saying among the Japanese: "Sato and Saito are everywhere."

Compared with China and Japan, some surnames are homologous, such as: taking titles and fiefs as surnames, such as Chen and Jinjiang; Take occupation as surname, such as Hattori and Taizai. In addition, many Japanese surnames are numbered, and some Japanese surnames are also numbered. A few years ago, Chongqing Times reported that surnames in Chongqing ranged from "one" to "ten", of which 447 were "five" and more than 70 were "hundred". However, some Japanese surnames take quantifiers and dates as surnames, such as one foot two inches, one foot seven inches, Jiuli, Shifan, 7th, 15th, 1st May, 17th night and month, and 12th December. But China has no surnames with quantifiers and dates. In addition, there are no temples as surnames in China, but there are some in Japan, such as saionji, Daguang Temple and Shuiqian Temple.

The Japanese emperor and his family have no surnames. Why is this? I once asked the Japanese this question, and the answers were different. One answer is: "Because the Japanese used to regard the emperor as a' god'. God is different from people, and God has no surname. " Another answer is: "What the Japanese see is that today's dynasty is Zhao's and tomorrow's dynasty is Zhu's. After you fight for it, it will become your own world, so the emperor doesn't want a surname. " Who is right and who is wrong is unknown. Japanese surnames are all written in Chinese characters, but we don't see surnames written in pseudonyms. Most of the surnames are written in Chinese characters, and some are written in pseudonyms. Japanese women change their husbands' surnames after marriage, which is different from China.

Japanese surnames and surnames are in exactly the same order as those in China, with surnames coming first and surnames coming last. Japanese names also have certain cultural connotations and characteristics of the times. Boys' names are often Lang, Male, Male, Yan, Xin and so on. Because the Japanese have a martial arts tradition, the words "Beowulf", "Sasuke" and "Wei Bing" are often used in their names. In addition, Japanese people like to show their rankings in their names. For example, the eldest son is called Taro and Ichiro, the second son is called Jiro and Jiro, and others are like Saburo and Jiro.

Some Japanese told me that Japanese names change with the development of the times. There will be no more names like Nakamaru Akihito Abe and Kibi No Asomi Makibi, famous Japanese students in the Tang Dynasty. Even the names of the older generation, such as company commanders Yoshiji Tanigawa and Yasuhiro Tanaka, are out of date.

Japanese women often use the word "zi" in their names. Why? It is said that the word "Zi" used to be used by Japanese aristocratic women, but later it became popular among ordinary women, and men rarely used it. In addition, Japanese women also use some words to express beauty and virtue, such as Keiko, Shizuko, Dai Jun, Yamei and Michiko. Some people say that many girls don't like to use the word "zi" in their names in recent years, which is probably a kind of "anti-trend".

Because most Japanese names are written in Chinese characters, we just need to read them according to the pronunciation of Chinese characters, which is easy to remember. However, because of the pronunciation of Chinese characters, there are two methods in Japan, namely "phonetic reading" and "training reading", especially the pronunciation of names, which is more complicated. Some Japanese names are pronounced in more than a dozen Chinese characters, so people are afraid to read them rashly, for fear that it is impolite to read them wrong, so some Japanese business cards are in Chinese characters.

When I meet some Japanese names, I often understand them from the meaning of Chinese characters. Because of the cultural background in China, there is also a cultural and psychological collision. For example, there is a girl whose name is Hua Changqing. This name is very nice, but I think if a girl is called Hua Changqing in China, it seems to be a stage name. This may be my old-fashioned mentality, which also shows that in the name,