Surnames mostly come from words. Most of them are locations. 山田 is exactly what is looks like, “mountain rice field”. 本田 main rice field.
本田 would be “Original Rice Paddy”
山田 would be “Mountain Rice Paddy”
Most names in most languages have a common meaning, but many languages also take personal names from other languages so those words lose their common meaning and just become associated with a name. That, or a name can get detached from it’s common meaning due to the evolution of a language.
Since many Japanese family names seem to refer to places in a rural environment (Fields, forests, rivers, mountains etc.), I always thought that the names had something to do with the place where a family used to live at the time when the family got associated with the name.
if a name is written in kanji, you could say the meaning of the name is the meaning of those kanji. But often, like in English, the literal meaning of the name isn’t important. Especially surnames, which are often just natural features or places like 小島 “small island”
Surnames (worldwide) usually fall into a few categories, many Japanese ones seem to be locational – taken from a place.
Names like 佐藤 with 藤 in likely indicate some sort of connection to the 藤原 originally.
In modern day, though, they don’t mean anything the same way if you see the name John Smith you don’t wonder if he’s into metalworking or find it weird if Thomas Brown is actually a redhead.
Your first example is a given name and the second and third are family names.
For given names, sometimes the word has a meaning and other times parents pick up kanji with good meaning and sound. I had a classmate whose name was 真奈美, and she told me that her parents picked her name based on the symmetry and meaning of the kanji.
Most of the family names are based on the place name that the ancestors picked up when they were told they had to have a family name by law. (this often resulted in whole villages sharing the same family name but that’s another story)
7 comments
No, most of them don’t have meanings
Surnames mostly come from words. Most of them are locations. 山田 is exactly what is looks like, “mountain rice field”. 本田 main rice field.
本田 would be “Original Rice Paddy”
山田 would be “Mountain Rice Paddy”
Most names in most languages have a common meaning, but many languages also take personal names from other languages so those words lose their common meaning and just become associated with a name. That, or a name can get detached from it’s common meaning due to the evolution of a language.
Since many Japanese family names seem to refer to places in a rural environment (Fields, forests, rivers, mountains etc.), I always thought that the names had something to do with the place where a family used to live at the time when the family got associated with the name.
if a name is written in kanji, you could say the meaning of the name is the meaning of those kanji. But often, like in English, the literal meaning of the name isn’t important. Especially surnames, which are often just natural features or places like 小島 “small island”
Surnames (worldwide) usually fall into a few categories, many Japanese ones seem to be locational – taken from a place.
Names like 佐藤 with 藤 in likely indicate some sort of connection to the 藤原 originally.
In modern day, though, they don’t mean anything the same way if you see the name John Smith you don’t wonder if he’s into metalworking or find it weird if Thomas Brown is actually a redhead.
Your first example is a given name and the second and third are family names.
For given names, sometimes the word has a meaning and other times parents pick up kanji with good meaning and sound. I had a classmate whose name was 真奈美, and she told me that her parents picked her name based on the symmetry and meaning of the kanji.
Most of the family names are based on the place name that the ancestors picked up when they were told they had to have a family name by law. (this often resulted in whole villages sharing the same family name but that’s another story)