How to find the Kanji version of my last name

6 comments

1. 梅津

2. Mine was on my great grandfather’s gravestone in Hawaii

3. There are two versions, AFAIK

   * 梅津
   * 楳津

4. There is very little you can do to intuit this. You need a written record or other lead that takes you to something in writing. A family letter, an old passport, possibly an address in Japan. And even if you got that, the privacy protection laws will make it difficult to continue your digging over here.

5. You can’t know with certainty without finding some kind of documentation, but 梅津 is by far the most common.

   There are others, but Umetsu is either but the primary reading (meaning fewer people with those kanji actually read it that way) or the total number of people with those kanji are a few hundred or less, so generally less likely.

6. All I can add is to be aware that there can be regional differences, so an important part of figuring this out is to understand which region in Japan you family is from. Then look there for Umetsu.