Amami Islands
As Japanese citizens, people of the Amami Islands today only have family names (surnames) and given names. They are known for many unique one-character surnames that date back to the Edo period. A survey on telephone directories of 2002 shows that 21.5% of the residents of the Amami Islands have one-character surnames. Famous people with one-character surnames include Atari (中) Kōsuke, Hajime (元) Chitose and Nobori (昇) Shomu.