  in modern times usually consist of a family name (surname), followed by a given name. "middle names" are not generally used. japanese names are usually written in kanji, which are characters usually chinese in origin but japanese in pronunciation. the kanji for a name may have a variety of possible japanese pronunciations, but parents might use hiragana or katakana when giving a birth name to their newborn child. names written in hiragana or katakana are phonetic renderings, and so lack the visual meaning of names expressed in the logographic kanji. japanese family names are extremely varied: according to estimates, there are over 100,000 different surnames in use today in japan.the expanded dictionary of japanese family names has 290,000 entries; some of these are distinguished by differences in pronunciation of the same characters, or by rare variant characters. æ¥æ¬èå­å¤§è¾å¸ãè³æé¤¨ã1996, 7æçºè¡ the three most common family names in japan are satÅ (), suzuki () and takahashi (). (.xls file). this diversity is in stark contrast to the situation in other nations of the east asian cultural sphere. this difference reflects a different history: while chinese surnames have been in use for millennia and were often reflective of an entire clan or adopted from nobles (with or without any genetic relationship) &ndash; and were thence transferred to korea and vietnam via noble names, modern japanese family names date only to the 19th century, following the meiji restoration, and were chosen at will. the recent introduction of surnames has two additional effects: japanese names became widespread when the country had a very large population (over 30,000,000 during the early meiji era &ndash
Japanese-language_surnames Names_by_culture