Culture through English 2B: Most common surnames in Japan・日本の最も一般的な名字

Hello!

How are you? Today we will begin looking at names in other languages and cultures. We will first focus on surnames (名字), and we'll start with Japanese surnames.  

Look at the seal above. It is of the Tokugawa clan, the most powerful daimyo family of the Edo period. They were among the few families in the Edo period to have surnames, as common Japanese people did not have surnames at that time. 

Activity

I asked all of you at the beginning of the class to get together and make lists of what you believe to be the 10 most common surnames in Japan. 

Now - check your lists against the list I found below, from Wikipedia. How close was your list compared to it?  

1. 佐藤 (Satou)

2. 鈴木 (Suzuki)

3. 高橋 (Takahashi) 

4. 田中 (Tanaka)

5. 渡辺 (Watanabe)

6. 伊藤 (Itou) 

7. 中村 (Nakamura)

8. 小林 (Kobayashi) 

9. 山本 (Yamamoto)

10. 加藤 (Katou)

Are any of your surnames in this top ten list? Have fun with this!

See you next time!

Image: By Unknown - Scanning of the book (December 31, 2009)/ сканирование книги (31.12.2009), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9010633