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Japan Naming Customs: Difference between revisions
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*After the Meiji Restoration, ''''the government ordered all commoners to assume surnames''' in addition to their given names, as part of modernization and Westernization; this was specified in the Family Register Law of 1898. | *After the Meiji Restoration, ''''the government ordered all commoners to assume surnames''' in addition to their given names, as part of modernization and Westernization; this was specified in the Family Register Law of 1898. | ||
*Many people adopted '''historical names, others simply made names up, chose names through divination, or had a Shinto or Buddhist priest choose a surname for them'''. This explains, in part, the large number of surnames in Japan, as well as their great diversity of spelling and pronunciation, and makes tracing ancestry past a certain point extremely difficult in Japan. | *Many people adopted '''historical names, others simply made names up, chose names through divination, or had a Shinto or Buddhist priest choose a surname for them'''. This explains, in part, the large number of surnames in Japan, as well as their great diversity of spelling and pronunciation, and makes tracing ancestry past a certain point extremely difficult in Japan. | ||
==Given Names== | |||