Personal Names in Pre-Edo and Edo-Period Japan
Samurai personal names consisted of the following elements:
Hon-sei (本姓): The clan name. The formal designation used in documents addressed to the imperial court. However, since it was common practice to falsely claim descent from powerful clans for political reasons, whether a person was a genuine descendant of a given clan requires detailed genealogical investigation.
Imina (諱): The personal name. The formal designation used in documents addressed to the imperial court.
The particle no (の) is inserted between the hon-sei and the imina when reading the full name. This is analogous to the de in French aristocratic names or the von in German ones.
Yōmyō (幼名): The childhood personal name, used until adulthood.
Myōji (苗字): Originally a common name derived from the name of one’s home territory, it gradually became a hereditary family name that continued to be used even after a family had left its original base. It was a formally usable designation in documents other than those addressed to the imperial court.
Kemyō (仮名): A common name used in conjunction with the myōji. This 仮名 is a completely different concept from hiragana (平仮名) and katakana (片仮名) (the Japanese phonetic alphabets). In the pre-Edo period, for ritual and customary reasons rooted in both magical belief and social etiquette, only a person’s parents or lord were permitted to address them by their imina; in all other relationships, people addressed one another by myōji or kemyō. The kemyō was frequently inherited across generations. It was a formally usable designation in documents other than those addressed to the imperial court.
It was also entirely normal to change one’s myōji, imina, or kemyō to commemorate an occasion, as a reward from one’s lord, or through inheritance. Accordingly, one must take care not to treat the same individual as two separate persons simply because their name differs between documents from different periods.
In principle, the same system applied to commoners, but in practice, during the Edo period, ordinary commoners — with the exception of those commoners who held privileged status — were, as a matter of administrative convention, identified only by their kemyō or imina. Myōji continued to be used in private life.
Tokugawa / Jirōsaburō / Minamoto / no / Ieyasu
Myōji / Kemyō / Hon-sei / no / Imina
Personal Names from the Meiji Period (Post-1875) Onward
One family name（氏）, one personal name（名）.
Upon marriage or adoption, one spouse or the adoptee changes their family name (shi 氏). Changing one’s name thereafter became extremely difficult.
In the case of samurai living around 1875, few registered their hon-sei as their shi in the family register; the overwhelming majority registered their myōji instead. As for the personal name (na), either the imina or the kemyō may have been registered in the family register — both are plausible.
Long and short vowels
Since Japanese distinguishes between long and short vowels, using macrons (long vowel marks) in Romanization is the most accurate approach. However, they are commonly omitted, which can lead to mispronunciations or misunderstandings by non-Japanese speakers due to the lack of distinction between long and short sounds.
