Is there a way I can know my Lastname Kanji?

7 comments

1. Do you know the city they were from? They will have records at their local city office.

   If it’s a common name then you could probably guess the kanji

2. What is the surname? If it’s not unusual, we could figure it out pretty easily. For example, Tanaka is 田中, Suzuki is 鈴木, Yamamoto is 山本, and so on. You can also look up “List of common Japanese surnames” on Wikipedia.

3. [assuming from your username]

   It appears that Nukai is not a common name, in fact I can’t find any instances in a cursory google. However, Inukai (犬飼 Inu=dog kai=feed) is fairly common – for example there’s a young actor named Atsuhiro Inukai.

   Could your grandparents have dropped the ‘i’?

4. Yes, by tracing their koseki back. Do you know if your parent and their siblings have a Japanese citizenship? How about yourself?

5. By your replies it seems like you already know your answer: kanji can vary. Someone here could give you the most common kanji combination for Inukai but you won’t have a definitive answer unless you either find any document (letters, ID, passport or a diary) where they wrote their names in kanji, or trace your ancestry and check the prefectural records in Japan. All of it is something only you and your relatives can do.

6. If you don’t know which city they’re from, your best bet would be looking through your grandparents’ belongings for any item with their names on it.

7. 額井 nukai is common places name near Nara